ACR 2025: Living Up to Indispensable

From the Chair of the Board of Chancellors

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ACR members, staff and other invited guests gathered in May in Washington, DC, for the College’s annual Meeting. ACR 2025 combined some familiar agenda items with fresh ideas — and a few new twists.

We all know that a successful annual meeting doesn’t just happen. It takes far more planning, prepping and real-time pivots than many attendees realize. With a primary goal of listening to our members’ needs before acting on assumptions, the College’s leadership raised the bar in presenting what ACR has done and continues to do to address the challenges of today’s radiology landscape. In other words, members don’t have to go at it alone — ACR has your back!

The ACR Council is only in session three days a year, but the Council Steering Committee — as one of its jobs in representing the Council during the other 362 days of the year — plans and orchestrates the ACR Annual Meeting. This year, the Council Steering Committee focused on the current state of radiology (including radiation oncology, interventional radiology, medical physics and nuclear medicine) while keeping our historical successes and challenges top of mind. A key goal at this year’s gathering was to emphasize and remind our members of ACR’s core goal: ACR is and will remain indispensable to radiologists.

Many of us attend annual meetings to see friends, earn CME, learn about radiology advocacy efforts, represent ACR chapters and influence ACR policies. While ACR 2025 certainly delivered on those fronts, the annual event is fundamentally a business meeting. It is where our chapters’ councilors, representing our members, make decisions about future policies that will bolster radiologists’ interests and positively impact our practices. In addition, the annual meeting is where we accomplish things our bylaws require, including the annual Council meeting, receiving and reviewing reports from our officers and electing new ACR leaders.

It is probably safe to assume that many attendees face similar daily challenges, especially the “hamster wheel” of too much work and too little time. And because our clinical volumes continue to climb, radiologists have less time and energy available for important non-clinical tasks that must be addressed in our practices, in our health systems and at state and national levels. These activities include lobbying for fair reimbursement, monitoring scope-of-practice legislation and mitigating regulatory burdens that are time-consuming and potentially overwhelming to busy radiologists. ACR 2025 focused on these shared challenges and how ACR and its volunteer leaders are tackling these issues and supporting radiologists’ futures.

The theme of being indispensable to members was woven throughout the reports of ACR CEO Dana H. Smetherman, MD, MPH, MBA, FACR; ACR Outgoing President Pamela K. Woodard, MD, FACR; and Alan H. Matsumoto, MD, FACR, chair of the Board of Chancellors. All three described their visions for the future of the specialty — always pushing forward, never looking back and accomplishing our goals together.

This year’s always popular Economics Forum went to the heart of how indispensable ACR is to members. The presentation “Radiology Regulatory Triumphs: Paving the Way for Future Success” highlighted ACR’s critical role in reimbursement wins for radiologists; new payment and CPT® codes for CT colonography and MRI safety services; and the ACR economics, government relations and Data Science Institute® activities pursuing artificial intelligence (AI) policies and AI payment that will benefit both patient care and radiology practices.

This year’s Open Microphone session focused on another issue affecting all physicians, including radiologists: consolidation. There were powerful and insightful discussions during which members shared personal stories about the pros and cons of a future shaped by consolidation. During the session, ACR leaders introduced members to a new ACR task force on the consolidation occurring in medicine and how this is impacting our members and practices. Be ready for more in that arena at ACR 2026.

New to the annual meeting this year, the Commission on Government Relations hosted an energetic “Family Feud” session showcasing how the College’s advocacy work is strengthening the future of the specialty and supporting member needs. Specifically, the GR team presented on a broad scope of issues, celebrating wins within the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, new and revised CPT codes and radiology code valuations. The team also pointed to a $500 million victory in drastically reducing the Multiple Procedure Payment Reduction, representing radiologists’ interests in the implementation of the No Surprises Act, shaping future prior authorization requirements and restoring $1.7 billion in proposed payment cuts to radiologists between 2021 and 2024. While these types of wins sometimes fly under members’ radars, they bolster the College’s mantra of being indispensable to its members.

Finally, in response to attendees’ feedback seeking direct engagement with our leaders, ACR 2025 introduced small group “Listen and Learn” lunch sessions with the College’s leadership. The open dialogue sessions included our CEO, BOC chair and vice chair, key members of ACR’s economics and AI teams and consolidation task force leaders. There were listening sessions focusing on membership, quality and safety and education initiatives. Turnout and engagement were notably strong and enthusiastic; ACR leaders learned a lot from members, and members embraced the two-way conversations, which carried beyond the time allotted for the events.

Overall, ACR 2025 was a big success. In these overly busy and constantly challenging times, the meeting was a great reminder of what radiologists can achieve by working together and leveraging our similarities — and the indispensable role ACR plays in advancing our specialty. Thank you to everyone who attended. We hope to see you all again next year, with even more of our members in attendance! Please join us for ACR 2026, May 2–6 in Washington, DC.