Radiology Business Management Association (RBMA) President Christopher (Kit) Crancer, senior vice president of radiology and public policy partnerships, and executive director of the Rayus Quality Institute, spoke to Radiology Business about some of the highlights from the 2024 RBMA meeting.
• Attendance for the meeting is up above pre-pandemic levels with nearly 700 attendees.
• Long-time RBMA Executive Director Bob Still is retiring this year and it was announced he will be replaced by two co-executive directors, current deputy executive director Jessica Struve, CAE, and Linda Wilgus, CPA, CMPE, FRBMA, who is the executive director/CFO of Northwest Radiology Network, a private practice radiology group in Indianapolis. She has been a radiology practice leader and has a large amount of advocacy, public policy and accounting experience, Crancer said. Struve has 20-years experience in association management and has served in numerous roles for the RBMA.
• Crancer delivered the state of the association address at the meeting and said while the membership involvement and volunteering is very strong, the RBMA and radiologists are facing an up-hill battle is regards to cuts from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
"The state of the association is strong," Crancer said. "We have a very engaged membership. We have more folks wanting to volunteer than ever before. There is also a lot of focus on public policy, including the Medicare physician fee schedule. We need to engage this collectively as an industry to get us out of this chronic cycle of CMS cuts to physician every year and then advocating for Congress to step in."
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.