ACR 2025: What Has the College Been Doing for You

Why do you attend the annual meetings of medical specialty groups? These gatherings are typically structured to provide members and other attendees with information and insight to hone their skills, improve quality of care for patients and streamline group operations. Whether the goal is to engage and inform members about evolving best practices, technology or new regulatory requirements, instilling a forward-thinking mentality is critical to empower healthcare professionals to maintain and elevate services in a breakneck environment threatened by high volumes and a shrinking pool of viable solutions.

At ACR 2025, leadership, staff and volunteers worked diligently to address the most pressing issues facing the specialty — with a novel twist. A major component of this year’s gathering was listening. ACR now more than ever wants to hear what its members and prospective members need to survive and thrive, regardless of their practice type or size. With all voices equal, attendees had a unique opportunity to spark positive changes through relatable dialogue with peers and radiology leaders.

ACR Impact

ACR leadership wants to help members succeed in the rapidly changing world by fighting for fair reimbursement, safeguarding radiologists’ authority and expertise and moving the specialty toward a secure future with imaging tools that enable safe and effective patient care. The 2024 Impact Report, a first-of-its-kind snapshot of what the College has accomplished for members in the past year, was a centerpiece of the annual meeting and demonstrates how the ACR’s efforts are advancing the specialty for our members and their practices.

The 2024 Impact Report captures wins in the reimbursement arena, the growth of the ACR’s AI portfolio, the College’s support of state chapters in their scope of practice and other advocacy efforts and more. The report also highlights our new and expanded educational offerings, groundbreaking research that is leading to improvements in clinical care and management and efforts to help medical students and residents understand more about our specialty.

Listen and Learn

A new feature at ACR 2025 was a series of “Listen and Learn” lunch breakout sessions. The purpose of these informal discussions is in the name — giving College leadership a chance to hear candid questions and concerns and respond openly about how the ACR can work with members to solve the challenges they are facing. There were Listen and Learns on many topics including AI, quality and safety, education, consolidation, economics and advocacy. There was also a session where attendees had a chance to interact with the chair and vice chair of the Board of Chancellors, Alan H. Matsumoto, MD, FACR, and Christoph Wald, MD, PhD, MBA, FACR, and ACR CEO Dana H. Smetherman, MD, MPH, MBA, FACR, FSBI. This Listen and Learn session with Drs. Matsumoto, Wald and Smetherman was a hotspot for conversation about current and planned initiatives by the College. Attendees asked questions about ACR Appropriateness Criteria®, scope of practice challenges (scope creep), reimbursement and the general outlook for the specialty — not only for diagnostic and interventional radiologists, but also for radiation oncologists, medical physicists and nuclear medicine physicians. 

In the session on AI, DSI leaders including Wald and ACR Data Science Institute® (DSI) Chief Medical Officer Woojin Kim, MD, ACR Commission on Informatics Vice Chair Tessa Cook, MD, PhD, CIIP, FSIIM, FCPP, FACR, DSI Chief Data Science Officer Keith J. Dreyer, DO, PhD, FACR, and DSI Associate Chief Science Officer Bernardo Bizzo, MD, PhD, focused on the informatics infrastructure ACR is building to ensure the safe, reliable and effective use of AI in members’ practices. The necessity of continuous monitoring of AI model performance in real world settings generated a lot of discussion among the Listen and Learn moderators and the audience. The conversation covered the critical need for post-market monitoring of AI models so physicians can quickly identify changes in model performance as soon as they occur. Facilitators emphasized the importance of human oversight throughout the AI deployment process to identify potential errors and validate AI-generated outcomes. Fielding questions on putting AI into practice, Listen and Learn leaders also noted the need for radiology professionals to become educated on how to use this technology for the benefit of themselves and the care of patients. The moderators also asked attendees for feedback on how they are currently using (or are planning to use) AI in their practices. Leadership also shared ACR’s plans to continue to build guidelines to ensure members are aware of and can incorporate best practices when they implement AI.

The open dialogue always circled back to the exchange of ideas and information and investigating solutions to common problems. The tone was positive and filled with the type of ‘Aha! moments’ of shared understanding that are sometimes missed during more structured, formal panel discussions. The standing room-only lunches could have gone on for hours, tapping into future opportunities and an appreciation of the current climate and challenges in U.S. healthcare. Expect more sessions like these at future ACR Annual Meetings.

Personal Perspectives

Outgoing ACR President Pamela K. Woodard, MD, FACR, gave a very personal and relatable address to a packed audience. “We all know the core purpose of the ACR — to serve patients and society by empowering members to advance the practice, science and professions of radiological care,” she opened.

“We should all know that the ACR is indispensable to members and potential members. But every now and then, something happens that puts things into a new perspective,” she said. Woodard then posted a single image on the massive screens of the Washington Hilton ballroom — CPT® code 75574.

“I want to talk to you about a CPT code that means a lot to me. It is the code (75574) for coronary CT angiography, or CCTA, and is integral to what I do for a living,” Woodard said. “The College works diligently with CMS and Congress to make sure our CPT codes are accurately valued, and physicians and hospitals are fairly reimbursed. There are times when we hear something over and over and yet it really doesn’t sink in until something happens that makes it uniquely your own.” 

Woodard shared her own experience with what she thought was an esophageal spasm. “What I thought was a spasm continued on and off for several days — it kept happening and was getting worse,” she explained. “I went to the emergency department, where I found my ECG and echo were normal, then we went for a coronary CTA.”

She showed her coronary CTA image onscreen to the audience. “Some of you know what this is. The CCTA showed an 80% basically non-calcified stenosis of my coronary artery,” Woodard stated. “I knew I was headed to the cath lab after being diagnosed by CPT code 75574.”

Woodard’s story is just one of many patient stories whose outcomes were impacted by the work of the College and its efforts to ensure safe, effective and potentially life-saving care. CCTA is now increasingly recognized as the first-line test for chest pain evaluation and coronary artery disease, she said. Woodard also showed attendees a Bulletin article on the doubling of CCTA technical reimbursement.

The Importance of Self-Knowledge

Developing leadership and communication skills through self-awareness and listening played perfectly into one of the College’s central messages at ACR 2025 — to serve its members better through the open exchange of information. This year’s Moreton Lecture focused on self-knowledge and its role in effective leadership, communication and professionalism. Alan Friedman, founder and CEO of J3P Health, who believes these qualities will allow radiology practices to thrive within a healthy work environment, delivered the 2025 Moreton Lecture, entitled “Maximizing Professional Success Through Connectivity and Self-Knowledge.”

The Moreton Lecture is a staple of the annual meeting. Exhibiting self-aware behavior, according to Friedman, is the foundation for the work that we do and the relationships we build. “Many of us don’t think about how other people view us,” Friedman said. “I saw many of you coming up to the microphone during the last session and I thought to myself, ‘Does that person know how other people are receiving the message that they are trying to convey?’ We don’t really think about things as intentionally as we could.” Friedman asked the audience not to think of what most refer to as weaknesses, but rather as challenges. “A challenge can be overcome with appropriate awareness, whereas a weakness can be viewed upon as a structural defect.”

Friedman concluded the lecture by talking about being more productive and feeling more of a sense of purpose from work by thinking about your approach to problem-solving. Communication is not just what’s comfortable or easiest for you, but what’s comfortable and effective for your audience. “You do not have to be the smartest person in a conversation,” he said. “The way we build relationships is by creating the space for other people to express themselves and for you to be genuinely curious — not checking a box because you’re basically looking to pretend that you are curious when you’re really not.” 

Winning Economics

The always popular Economics Forum at ACR 2025, moderated by Gregory N. Nicola, MD, FACR, chair of the Commission on Economics, highlighted recent successes for radiology — including coverage of CT colonoscopy for Medicare patients and new CPT codes for MRI safety. The first part of the forum featured updates by Cindy Yuan, MD, PhD, chair of the ACR Commission on Economics Committee on Nuclear Medicine, Judy Yee, MD, FACR, chair of the ACR Colon Cancer Committee and Heidi A. Edmonson, PhD, FACR, chair of the ACR Medical Physics Economics Committee. 

The session kicked off with an AMA/Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee and CPT update by Yuan who noted that one of the many wins was successfully converting cerebral CT perfusion from a temporary (Category III) code to an established (Category 1) code. She also noted significant collaboration with radiology oncology societies that will result in changes to the radiation treatment delivery codes, as well as new superficial radiation therapy codes available in 2026. “This is an example of how to work with other specialties and come to a mutual agreement about how to restructure a code family and codify new CPT codes that can preserve our codes while creating new procedures for physicians in other specialties,” said Yuan.  Yuan also provided an update on the Physician Practice Information Survey, an effort by the AMA to collect data on practice expenses and patient care times and costs. 

Yee highlighted the College’s push to get Medicare coverage of screening CT colonography. “It took more than 15 years of continual effort to achieve Medicare coverage for screening CTC,” said Yee. This was despite earlier endorsement of screening CTC by the American Cancer Society (2008) and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (2016). In July 2024, CMS proposed coverage of screening CTC in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System rules, and it was finalized in November 2024. CMS coverage of CTC for colorectal cancer screening started Jan. 1, 2025.

Edmonson concluded part one of the Economics Forum with an update on new services for reimbursement in radiology without devaluing or risking other established procedures. According to Edmonson, many patients with complex implanted devices are now eligible for MR examinations, but it can require a lot of extra work and expertise to perform MR exams safely when some of these implants are present.

 

Economics II: Deliberate AI

The second part of the Economics Forum focused on AI. Specifically, the panel kicked off a discussion on one of the newest DSI initiatives, the ACR Recognized Center for Healthcare-AI (ARCH-AI). Introduced in June 2024, this first-of-its-kind national AI recognition program culminated from expert consensus on best practices for AI. “ARCH-AI is a deliberate approach to get us all to the point where we are using AI in a safe, effective and responsible way,” said Cook. Based on ARCH-AI, ACR’s Quality and Safety group is building an accreditation program, noting it is critical to have the infrastructure of a program to make sure imaging AI is used properly.

The discussion then shifted to AI-Central, an online directory that provides up-to-date resources on FDA-authorized medical and radiology products in the U.S. AI-Central provides details and transparency on this technology to allow departments and practices to be as informed as possible on new AI technologies. Transparency has been a problem in AI solutions in the past, but AI-Central is trying to change that with their Transparent AI initiative. “Transparent AI is a free volunteer initiative in AI-Central that allows AI vendors to voluntarily provide details about how they train and evaluate their AI models,” said Kim. “This is eventually going to become important, not just for the manufacturers who participate to signal they care about transparency in AI, but for the medical professionals who are using AI-Central products to understand which manufacturers will meet the requirements of ARCH-AI in the future.”

Assess-AI, which was launched in November 2024, was also a major talking point of the forum. The first nationwide registry for monitoring AI results, Assess-AI makes real-time assessment of AI models in clinical practice available to participating practices. Assess-AI is built on ACR Connect, the same platform we use in other ACR programs, including accreditation and research. 
With respect to Assess-AI, Dreyer explained the importance of creating an environment to test AI models in critical moments to see how they specifically analyze data to create results. “Since the FDA has not yet developed post-market surveillance for these algorithms, it is up to radiologists to determine how accurate these models are in practice,” Dreyer said. “It is beholden to us to be able to go through a process to validate AI to ensure they’re accurate. So, we have created a solution to evaluate these models in your own environment with you as the expert and using your own data.” 

The final topic of the session was the use of generative AI in radiology reporting and department workflow. The panel concluded that generative AI can be used efficiently to bring forward data on patients, save physicians time and allow for quicker intake of information for patients’ diagnoses.

By Chad Hudnall, Nicole Racadag and Alexander Utano, ACR Bulletin