Hello and Happy Summer! 

Hopefully, by now, many of you have either heard my vision as part of my initial speech at SCAI 2025 Scientific Sessions or heard one of the podcasts or interviews about all we have in store this year. It’s been an exciting decade of growth at SCAI, with JSCAI publishing key guidelines and consensus statements, increasing advocacy, and multiple educational efforts raising visibility and impact for our members. On this backdrop, allow me to highlight some of the progress we have made these past three months. 

1. Advocacy: SCAI leaders and members met with more than 30 congressional offices during 2025 Scientific Sessions, while several representatives came to our meeting to hear from us directly. This was the first time that SCAI has had that kind of pull, raising awareness of interventional cardiology and our role in public health and innovation. SCAI also signed on to coalitions that resulted in the first-ever increase (rather than the annual decrease) in the physician fee schedule. While a temporary fix for the year, it clearly shows that Congress knows there is a problem with declining physician reimbursement.
   
   In addition, SCAI supported the Workforce Mobility Act, which is aimed at getting rid of noncompete clauses, took a stand on the student loan provision legislation to help residents and medical students, and, most recently, is working with ACC and HRS to lobby CMS against the decrease in payment for LAAO closure. New codes for PCI for retrograde CTO and others hope to offset the minuses on the re-evaluation of the PCI codes.
   
   While SCAI is getting better at working within the system and collaborating with other organizations, it is also clear that broader alliances will be needed to change the system. So, we’re increasingly at the table and not on the menu. The newly proposed Physician Fee Schedule, containing an “efficiency adjustment,” highlights this point. Despite the temporary fix mentioned above, the proposal threatens the role of the RUC by creating a 2.5% efficiency adjustment to intra-service times and work RVUs. This opens the door to not listening to the RUC and the surveys, regardless of our recommendations. A new, unified, and strong voice is needed to overcome these obstacles. To this end, we are working on developing a more strategic network, starting with firming up our relationships with ACC, AHA, HFSA, ASE, HRS, SVS, SVM, and SIR, and then broadening it to patient-centered, hospital, payors, and government organizations. Part of this will involve stronger collaborations and presence in Washington, DC. More on that coming soon! We believe our mission as interventionalists is big enough and important enough to society that we should advocate at much higher levels, and these alliances will allow us to do so over time. 
    
2. Shock: SCAI has been the major society in the push to champion cardiogenic shock survival, and continues this mission with SCAI SHOCK 2025 this September in Tampa, Florida. Coincident with that meeting, we will be presenting and publishing our position statement on the SCAI Door to Lactate Clearance (DLC) Initiative. The third iteration of the SCAI Shock Classification is also in the works with a goal of publication at the 2026 SCAI Scientific Sessions & CAIC-ACCI Summit, and we have started to open a conversation with the AHA about collaborating on the national Shock Registry so that optimal patient care, data collection, and physician efforts in this space are aligned. 
    
3. Health & Wellness: After our coordinated first-ever multisociety symposium of all stakeholders who wear lead during the SCAI 2025 Scientific Sessions, our document on minimizing or eliminating the risks of radiation, both orthopedic and oncologic, is making progress – expect that to be published in JSCAI in early 2026. The next phase will be to create a plan to actualize this effort into labs adopting technologies to protect our members – interventionalists and all members of the heart team, including our imagers and surgeons.
   
   Alongside this, we have several initiatives planned to improve the wellness of our members and reduce burnout, including a social media campaign to increase awareness of what interventional cardiologists do, more fun activities during our meetings, and exploring updating our STEMI call consensus document to provide some guidance on appropriate call logistics and pay.
    
4. Visibility: One of my goals this year is for the country to realize that interventionalists and our heart team colleagues are doing a whole host of procedures, with much greater variety that span the realms of congenital heart disease, coronary, structural, and endovascular than ever before, and that each of these is growing rapidly and dominating. Therefore, it’s time everyone knew who we are and why we need to be understood, protected, and our pipeline kept robust. In addition to amplifying our advocacy voice, it will also go a long way toward feeling proud of what we do, easing burnout in our field, and encouraging the next generation to choose interventional cardiology.
   
   To this end, get ready for a social media campaign about interventional cardiology. While plans for this are still being developed, please grab the newly redesigned SCAI hat which features simply the logo in the front, and have it ready!
    
5. Other Initiatives: In other areas, we published the first-ever guideline on chronic venous disease treatment, a particularly timely multidisciplinary topic, are working with the ABCVM and sister organizations on potential next steps to improve the maintenance of certification (MOC) process, and are beginning our planning and fundraising for the Mid-career SCAI ELM Workshop. And more guidelines and consensus statements are on the way, focused on issues that truly matter and complement documents from AHA and ACC. 

There are some other really exciting initiatives that are in the works. I’ll be able to update you on these in successive President’s Messages. Rest assured, your SCAI is growing and thinking broadly about how we can represent and empower all of you – body, mind, and soul – right where you work as well as nationally.

Your President, 

Srihari S. Naidu, MD, MSCAI
2025–26 SCAI President