Advocacy ACHIEVEMENTS
All the work that our members and leaders had done over the years served as the foundation for taking the next step of becoming a primary specialty.
Then came board certification and the need for our own IR fellowships. As my mentor Gary Becker, MD, FSIR, said, board certification is there to protect the public—so achieving that gave us credibility with the public, as well as other professional societies. We now had a new society name, a seat in the American Medical Association’s House of Delegates, subspecialty recognition, a training pathway, and a Foundation to help us continue to develop and sustain ourselves with new developments.
SIR and IR were essentially being reinvented each year with new procedures and developments, and eventually we were confident enough to develop our own certification. All the work that our members and leaders had done over the years served as the foundation for taking the next step of becoming a primary specialty.
I was so fortunate to have a seat there on the train as we went through this. How lucky am I to have grown my career at the same time the specialty grew?
SIR’s advocacy team is always working behind the scenes to protect IR interests and expand patient access. In the last 4 years alone, these efforts have yielded some big wins:
2021: SIR successfully advocated for the retirement of national coverage determination (NCD) 240.6 for transvenous (catheter) pulmonary embolectomy. This was a 38-year-old CMS policy that created barriers for physicians treating PE patients via mechanical thrombectomy.
2022: SIR partnered with American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) to submit survey data to CMS to increase the salary wage of vascular interventional technologists. This resulted in a 0.84 rate per minute value vs. 0.41 rate per minute in 2021, which is a total change of 104%.
2022: SIR successfully advocated for the inclusion of UFE in legislation forcing private insurance to pay for procedures to treat uterine fibroids. The Governor of Rhode Island signed the bill into law on July 22, 2022 with SIR members as distinguished guests at the signing ceremony.
2023: SIR stopped a CMS national correct coding initiative, which, if published, would have prevented IRs from reporting 76937–ultrasound guidance for vascular access with a primary procedure.
• SIR met with EviCore medical directors and was successful in changing the policy for accreditation and interpretation of credentialed physicians for comprehensive venous procedures that would have had a major impact on our members.
• Through two comment letters to CMS regarding their NCD for 20.7 for percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) of the carotid artery concurrent with stenting (CAS), SIR was successful in expanding coverage to include individuals of standard surgical risk, patients with symptomatic carotid artery stenosis 50%, and patients with asymptomatic carotid artery stenosis 70 while also removing the operator and facility requirements, including mandating data collection as a facility criterion for CAS.
Expanding IR/DR licensing options: In 2019, SIR asked medical boards to add the IR/DR certificate to their licensing options. SIR sent letters to 15 state medical boards requesting they add the new IR/DR certificate to their licensing options so interventional radiologists can appropriately designate IR as their primary practice area.
The value of IR: In 2021, SIR launched the Value of IR campaign, focused on helping members convey the value of IR to healthcare. The findings concluded that by investing in IR and expanding its access to patients, the value of IR—a market that is estimated to reach $29.2 billion by 2027—can be multiplied through the healthcare ecosystem.
IR in US Health News: In 2021 and 2024, SIR provided IR data to the U.S. Health News to include IRs in their surveys. 5,392 unique IR/DRs within the U.S. were identified through claims-based data, and 3,144 SIR members were included for the 2025 U.S. Health News survey.
2014–2017 IR residencies, first match day
In 2014, ACGME approves program requirements for IR residency and begins the process for accrediting integrated IR residencies. The first integrated IR residency match takes place on March 18, 2016, and in 2017, the ACGME program approval process for independent IR residency programs opens. Hear from the first group of IR residents and learn more about the evolution of IR training on page 18.
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