February 27, 2019 — The American College of Radiology (ACR) urges radiologists and allied professionals to help the college ward off $112 million in Medicare ultrasound reimbursement cuts by sending invoices to the ACR that reflect the actual cost to purchase ultrasound equipment.
The college said the invoices are needed to counteract inaccurate Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) updates to direct practice expense inputs for equipment and supply pricing for ultrasound and vascular ultrasound rooms.
The ACR and the Ultrasound Access Coalition (UAC) convinced CMS to delay the cuts — which were to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2019. However, unless the ACR and UAC can provide CMS with more updated cost figures that reflect the real-world cost of providing these services, the ultrasound cuts could go into effect as early as 2020.
“Our efforts to educate CMS on the true cost of providing these services and the adverse impact of such cuts on access to care, will be ineffective if radiologists, radiology business managers and other ultrasound providers do not supply recent invoices. Please send such invoices to the ACR now,” said American College of Radiology Chief Executive Officer William T. Thorwarth Jr., MD, FACR.
Invoices should be submitted to [email protected].
The Ultrasound Access Coalition also hosted a recent webinar on the topic, which can be viewed here.
For more information: www.acr.org
July 19, 2024 
