A Letter from the President

A letter from the President of American Association of Clinical Urology, Inc. 

We are very busy here at the AACU. The Board members have been present at meetings across the nation as well as being well represented at the 2025 AMA Annual Meeting in Chicago. We had five, yes, five AACU members in attendance working hard to address the issues we urologists face when it comes to decreasing reimbursement for clinic procedural supplies. The constant onslaught that is lowering payouts more than the cost of purchase is unsustainable and will stomp out remaining small practice clinics that have been struggling even before the pandemic. We will continue at the AACU to be active members of the AMA delegation and fight for what is needed to continue care for your patients.

In September we were the first urologic organization to submit comments to CMS regarding the physician pay rule. We have consistently seen decreasing values assigned to urology work RVUs. The AACU has asked for more transparency in the RUC survey results in regard to the response rate (median response rate 2.2 percent; 2015). In addition, the wide range of practice types respondents that do answer, skews the average times for such a low total number of responses (median response number to survey 52; 2015). We have

encouraged CMS to look at alternative ways to accurately measure practitioner time, work intensity, and proactive expenses. In our comments, we also ask that CMS not pit urologists against each other from the have and have nots or the facility-based vs non-facility-based urologist. There are some areas of the country where there are not both options. Over the past year, our membership has reported sudden facility closures in multiple states. It is shocking to hear, even more alarming when the urology practice finds out in an email only days before the facility is closing its doors abruptly upending the practice and patients’ accessibility.

As the end of this year approaches, we are not slowing down. There is a large agenda ahead of us with our After-Hours Series. The Federal Trade Commission has issued a request for information on employee noncompete agreements. The goal is to “better understand the scope, prevalence, and effects of employer noncompete agreements, as well as to gather information to inform possible future enforcement actions.” We will have an evening with our members to listen to an expert in the field and submit their own experiences and questions before releasing comments before the FTC in November. We encourage all members and future members to be engaged in this issue that has affected so many practicing urologists.

There will be additional After-Hours sessions with our continued partnership with Phairify. We have a two-part series to educate and show how members can submit and learn their value using the power of the crowd. Allowing our urologists to see and compare their market value in certain areas of the country is a great resource that is a benefit to your membership. There is further advantage that Phairify provides in providing you contacts and options to find your ideal job based on your filters. This is the added resource that allows our members to search for practice types that better suit their needs. All of these extras come with your membership in the AACU.

Charles Mark Jackson, MD
AACU President