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2014 Annual Report Top Accomplishments

Fiscal Year 2014 Top Accomplishments

The ACR celebrates significant accomplishments in FY2014 across all core areas of the College.

Advocacy & Economics

Through ACR advocacy efforts, the 2014 Protecting Access to Medicare Act passes, mandating that:
- Ordering providers consult ACR Appropriateness Criteria® (clinical decision support) when prescribing advanced imaging for Medicare patients beginning January 1, 2017
- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services produce data justifying a 25 percent multiple-procedure payment reduction for imaging procedures provided to the same patient, on the same day, in the same session
- Cuts to medical services greater than 20 percent (over the previous year) are phased in over a two-year period
ACR economics team efforts lead to a delay in the implementation of ICD-10 provider payment codes and prepare radiology providers for the transition to this new system

ACR 2015™ Program Committee develops an annual meeting program of 100+ educational sessions
The ACR Education Center welcomes 1,346 attendees with a return-attendee rate of 26.7% .
ACR live education meetings attract 1,087 attendees.
ACR eLearning releases ACR RADAR™, a unique self-assessment and knowledge-improvement program for practicing radiology physicians and fellows.

The ACR National Radiology Data Registry (NRDR™) is designated a Qualified Clinical Data Registry by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
Participation in NRDR rises 46 percent with more than 759 facilities actively contributing data (a 55 percent increase)
Lung-RADS™ — a reporting system for low-dose CT lung cancer screening — is developed and made freely available
Developed a new ACR Lung Cancer Screening Center Designation for sites that are already accredited in CT and offer low-dose CT screening for lung cancer

The Diagnostic Imaging Quality Assurance Center of the ACR-administered Imaging and Radiation Oncology Core Group (IROC) supports 32 clinical trials in the National Cancer Institute’s National Clinical Trials Network
ACR Imaging Core Laboratory distributes nearly 25,000 imaging studies for remote multisite review by radiologists

The Imaging 3.0™ initiative pilots the Radiology Practice Visitation Program, complete with an alpha site visit and beta framework
The Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR®) publishes several special issues on important topics, including radiation dose, informatics, and metrics, and establishes the Bruce J. Hillman Fellowship in Scholarly Publishing, designed to encourage talented junior and mid-career radiologists to pursue medical journalism as a part of their careers
ACR launches the So-Fi Loan Repayment Program, a unique member benefit offering loan refinancing and consolidation to qualified ACR members with substantial medical school debt
The ACR Foundation International Outreach Program establishes International Facility Profiles with the goal of identifying volunteer and donation opportunities for facilities throughout the developing world
ACR initiates a new program — the Chapter Leaders Advancement Series (CLASS) — to offer ongoing professional development webinars on nonprofit management and leadership to ACR chapter officers and staff