Meeting Minutes

Nov. 17, 2004 Executive Committee Meeting

Present: Drs. Edward Melian, Abraham Dachman, Carl Kalbhen, Nandita Guha-Thakura, Jay Korach, Margaret Stull, Edward Michals, Davide Bova, Thomas Anderson, Kate Feinstein, Harold Lasky, Richard Mintzer, Michael Racenstein and Ruth Ramsey.

The meeting was called to order at 4:20 PM at The 500 Club of Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT/APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
The minutes from the October 21, 2004 meeting were approved after minor corrections.

RESIDENT SECTION REPORT:
Dr. Guha-Thakurta stated that tonight’s Resident Section will be given by Dr. Hector Ferral, who will speak on “Interventional Cases For Boards Review”. This session will be sponsored by W. L. Gore for $500, and W. L. Gore will be acknowledged during the dinner for their generous contribution.

PROGRAM COMMITTEE REPORT:
Dr. Dachman gave the list of speakers for tonight’s Breakout Sessions. Last month marked the first meeting in which five, rather than the usual four, Breakout Sessions were held. The Mammography Session was to be held in the Board Room, geographically separate from the other Breakout Session rooms. Because of poor attendance, the moderators, Drs. Schmidt and Newstead, decided not to give the session. As the Mammography Breakout Sessions have been very well attended in the past, possible reasons for this poor attendance include suboptimal room location and dilution of attendees (the 71 people who attended the meeting had five Breakout Sessions from which to choose). As five sessions are also scheduled for the February 2005 meeting and will require the same room arrangement, Drs. Dachman and Melian will speak with Dr. Newstead regarding her wishes for that meeting. Dr. Marnix T. van Holsbeeck will be the Featured Speaker for tonight’s Scientific Session. Dr. Dachman has begun work on the speaker schedule for the 2005-2006 CRS season. As occurs tonight, the November 2005 meeting will also be held on a Wednesday because of a yearly 500 Club commitment on the third Thursday of November.

ILLINOIS RADIOLOGY SOCIETY REPORT:
Dr. Mintzer was happy to announce that the 2005 ACR Annual Meeting in Washington, DC will take place from April 9-14, not over Mothers’ Day weekend as have the previous several meetings. This should encourage attendance for those ACR members who are, have or are married to mothers.

Drs. Minzer and Dachman discussed the controversies involved with reimbursement of virtual colonoscopy (VC). It is difficult to get reimbursed for screening VC examinations, but diagnostic studies (eg, failed colonoscopy, poor colonoscopy candidate) are often reimbursed with the use of standard Category I CPT codes (eg, CT abdomen/pelvis with reconstruction). However, it has been recommended by some, including the ACR, that VC be billed using the Category III CPT codes which are issued for emerging technologies. By using these Category III codes, the government and other agencies can collect data on how many VC examinations are being done, but their use also makes it difficult - if not impossible - for radiologists and their institutions to be reimbursed. The logistic and ethical issues involved were discussed at some length, and an ad hoc committee may be formed in the future to discuss these issues with insurance carriers, particularly Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

GOLF OUTING REPORT:
Dr. Mintzer reported that the possibility of combining the CRS Golf Outing with the IRS Educational Symposium has been investigated and is feasible. Unfortunately, there is not enough planning time available to organize such an event for 2005. Because of this and the continuing yearly decrease in radiologist attendance at the Golf Outing, it was decided to not have a CRS Golf Outing in 2005. For 2006, the possibility of restarting the Golf Outing, with or without a concurrent IRS Educational Symposium, will be revisited.

SECRETARY/TREASURER REPORT:
Dr. Kalbhen reported that the Society’s finances remain strong and are nearly $20,000 above last year’s levels at this time. However, some of this is the result of the fact that the Society has yet to be billed by Rush for dinner or audiovisual services for the October meeting. It was suggested to Dr. Kalbhen that the dinner reservation process could perhaps become paperless. There are several teaching institutions that have written sign-up sheets for the dinners that they prefer to fax. This will be discussed with the individual institutions over the course of this CRS season, as dinner reservations made by email should be simpler and less prone to error or loss.

WEBSITE REPORT:
Dr. Kalbhen reported that the individual email addresses have been removed from the website, with only a general information address (info@chi-rad-soc.org) now present. The website hosting services have been renewed for the next five years. There are currently logos and links to two corporate sponsors on the website because of past financial support of the CRS Golf Outing. Dr. Kalbhen will contact these sponsors to see if they wish to continue their CRS sponsorship and presence on the website.

NEW BUSINESS:
An article published in the Wall Street Journal on 11/16/04 gave recommendations on screening examinations and stated that VC “may be helpful”.

Dr. Lasky brought up the topic of offering CME credit at CRS meetings, and past difficulties with attempting this were discussed. As the Chicago Medical Society (CMS) granted CME credit for the recent IRS Educational Symposium, Mr. Merle Hedland will be contacted about the possibility of a similar arrangement being made with the CMS for CME at CRS meetings.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:30 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Carl Kalbhen, MD
Secretary/Treasurer

Dinner was served to 81 people. Following dinner and a short business meeting, Dr. Thomas Grant introduced Dr. Marnix van Holsbeeck who gave a talk entitled, “A Dynamic Approach to Rotator Cuff Disease”.

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