American Society of Neuroradiology

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Preview Information on ASNR 2013
April 20, 2012

Preview next year's ASNR Meeting content at www.asnr.org/2013, where you will find a welcome video, brochure and brief program outline. The 51st Annual Meeting of the ASNR and the Foundation of the ASNR Symposium 2013 will take place May 18-23 at the San Diego Convention Center.

Special AJNR Supplements Celebrate 50 Years of ASNR History
April 5, 2012

The American Society of Neuroradiology marks its 50th anniversary in 2012 and the American Journal of Neuroradiology is commemorating this milestone with a series of multimedia tributes. Just released is "History of Neuroradiology: ASNR and AJNR," a Special Collection edited by Mauricio Castillo, AJNR's Editor-in-Chief.

"ASNR's gold anniversary is an occasion to celebrate, recall our history, and stand in awe of those first visionaries who saw the opportunity and need to formally establish the specialty of neuroradiology in the United States and around the world," observed Castillo. "This collection of almost 90 articles from AJNR and other publications documents what has occurred since the start of neuroradiology up until today. The beauty of its electronic basis is that it will allow new content to be added as years pass."

Complementing the published history collection is a series of podcasts with ASNR founders and visionaries. AJNR’s Podcast Editor C. Douglas Phillips interviewed these dignitaries and a new podcast will released each month, beginning in April. The first is a reminiscence with Michael Huckman, ASNR Past President and former AJNR Editor-in-Chief. These special podcasts will be posted along with Dr. Phillips' regular summaries of each issue's highlights and are available to download from the AJNR Website or the iTunes Store.

A second Special Collection "Top 40 Articles in AJNR," compiled by Guest Editors Harry J. Cloft and David F. Kallmes will be released later in the month to coincide with ASNR's Annual Meeting in New York City, the site of its founding. The Journal is also featuring a series of historical Perspectives columns and 50th Anniversary review articles, published in its January, June-July, and December issues.

AJNR's Special Collections are intended to provide a comprehensive source of imaging-related articles on a single topic and are released biannually on an open-access basis. Previous Collections include "Imaging Acute Stroke and its Consequences," "Acute Stroke Intervention," "Percutaneous Vertebroplasty," "Radiation Dose in Neuroradiology CT Protocols," "Brain Tumor Imaging, Volume 1: Pretherapy," "Brain Tumor Imaging, Volume 2: Posttherapy,"  "Head and Neck Neoplasms," and "Congenital Brain Anomalies." All are available through AJNR's print-on-demand service (Brightdoc), where readers can order a full-color hard copy for just US $50.00, plus shipping.

ASNR 2012 Cornelius G. Dyke Memorial Award...
March 15, 2012

This award was established to honor one of the pioneers in neuroradiology, and is given to a trainee or junior faculty member in neuroradiology for excellence as demonstrated in a paper that represents original, unpublished research in some aspect of neuroradiology.

Rahul S. Desikan, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of California, San Diego will be awarded the 2012 Cornelius G. Dyke Memorial Award for his paper, "Phospho-tau not APOE ε4 modulates amyloid-β associated neurodegeneration in cognitively normal older individuals."

His paper will be presented during the 50th Annual Meeting at the New York Hilton on Monday, April 23, 2012, from 3:48-3:56 pm, during Session 15c.

Warm congratulations, to Dr. Desikan!

2012-2013 ASNR Election Results...
March 5, 2012

Ballots for the 2012-2013 elections were filed electronically, with the following results:

Vice-President: Gordon K. Sze, M.D.
Yale University, New Haven, CT

Secretary: Jacqueline A. Bello, M.D.
Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY

Members of the Nominating Committee:
Erin Simon Schwartz, M.D.
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA

Steven W. Hetts, M.D.
University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA

Congratulations to everyone, and thank you to the Nominating Committee, chaired by Dr. Jeffrey R. Petrella, for their hard work.

No Compensation Without Representation
February 22, 2012

In the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule for 2012 released last November, CMS mandates that codes for brain CT, brain MRI, cervical spine MRI, and lumbar spine MRI must all be presented to the AMA Relative Value Scale Update Committee (the "RUC") for review in the next year or so.  At this review, the RUC will either propose new RVUs for these procedures or recommend that CMS should maintain the current RVUs, based upon survey results and subspecialty input. This is the highest number of neuroradiology codes and the most important collection of codes to be presented in recent memory.  The outcome could impact the future of our specialty.  Yet, the ASNR will not be able to participate in the discussion without your immediate help.

Please join the AMA by logging onto www.ama-assn.org/go/join, and tell your partners, friends, and colleagues who are ASNR Senior members to do so as well.  Otherwise, we will lose our ability to participate in the AMA valuation process and will have to rely on other specialties to present these codes.  The review of these codes will take place with or without ASNR representation.  The only question is whether the ASNR will have a seat at the table.  The ASNR is audited for participation of its Senior membership in the AMA and currently falls below the target threshold, despite sending a recent desperate plea to our membership.  The audit occurs only once every five years, with the next audit scheduled for April 15th of this year.

Whatever your views of the AMA or your reasons for hesitation, refusing to join only hurts you and your colleagues in radiology.  The price of membership approximates the professional revenue of a handful of the codes under consideration.  The ASNR has a proud history as one of the first and most active radiology subspecialty societies at the RUC, and has a team of dedicated volunteer physicians and staff who have devoted years learning the nuances of code valuation, building trusted reputations, and developing key relationships with other participants in the process.  It is nearly inconceivable that we might have to be excluded from the process at the very time that our most crucial codes are coming under scrutiny.

Please use the link shown above to join the AMA immediately. Once you submit your application, send an email to kcammarata@asnr.org letting us know if you join or are already a member and plan to renew, so that we can closely monitor our membership status with the AMA.  If you are a current AMA member, it is equally important to renew your AMA membership for 2012. 

Thank you in advance for helping the ASNR to continue to represent our subspecialty effectively.

Sincerely,

David B. Hackney, M.D.
ASNR President

Robert M. Barr, M.D.
ASNR Chair, Clinical Practice Committee

ASNR CPC Standards and Guidelines Subcommittee Overview
January 13, 2012

The ASNR Clinical Practice Committee (CPC) Standards and Guidelines Subcommittee, chaired by Jacqueline A. Bello, MD, FACR, and co-chaired by John E. Jordan, MD, represents ASNR membership on guidelines and technical standards development and review.

Standards and Guidelines are educational tools developed to assist practitioners in providing appropriate care for patients. Practice Guidelines describe recommended conduct in specific areas of clinical practice, whereas Technical Standards describe technical parameters that are measureable. Practice Guidelines and Technical Standards are both based on analysis of current literature, expert opinion, open forum commentary, and informal consensus. Practice Guidelines and Technical Standards are not intended to be legal standards of care.

The ASNR Standards and Guidelines Subcommittee works closely with the ACR Neuroradiology Commission, which is chaired by Carolyn Meltzer, MD, FACR. The Standards and Guidelines Subcommittee roster is available at the following link: Standards and Guidelines Roster

The ASNR Standards and Guidelines Subcommittee have a joint meeting with the ACR Neuroradiology Commission twice a year. Web links to practice guidelines that ASNR collaborated on in 2011 is below.
Practice Guidelines adopted at May, 2011 ACR Annual Meeting and Chapter Leadership Conference (AMCLC)

• CT Head and Neck (with ACR)
• CT Spine (with ACR and ASSR)
• Vertebral Augmentation (with ACR, ASSR, SIR, SNIS)
• Cervicocerebral Catheter Angiography (with ACR, SIR, SNIS)

In addition to the important work of this Subcommittee, the ASNR needs to maintain its voice in the AMA CPT Editorial Panel, and the Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC). To do this we need to increase the number of ASNR members who are also AMA members. Please consider joining the AMA so that ASNR can retain its seat in the AMA House of Delegates. ASNR is currently at risk of losing this seat which would preclude involvement in many of the decisions on coding and reimbursement most important to membership. The AMA membership page can be found at the following link: AMA Membership Page.

Previous ASNR News...

ASNR 51 ^st Annual Meeting - May 18 - 23, 2013 »

ASNR 50 ^th Annual Meeting - April 21 - 26, 2012 »

Annual Meeting Contributors
Platinum Level
Gold Level
Silver Level
Bronze Level

ACR/ASNR statement on CT Protocols and Radiation Dose

The Foundation of the ASNR grants information »

AJNR Special Collection: Percutaneous Vertebroplasty »

ASNR Position Papers »

SAM Certificate Information »

Learn more about evidence-based radiology by clicking here »

ACR Practice Leaders Web Page and Forum »