After COVID-19, LUGPA More Important Than Ever

COVID-19 has presented our practices a crisis of unprecedented proportion. Our mission to preserve and advance the independent practice of urology has never been more important. As many groups began informally exchanging ideas about surviving the pandemic, LUGPA worked to keep our members informed on issues pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the national level, LUGPA’s health policy and political affairs teams worked around the clock with members of Congress to ensure that legislation was crafted to include the independent physician groups in financial relief packages to ensure business continuity. This would not have been possible without your urgent participation in grassroots efforts to contact members of Congress to support a key piece of legislation.

LUGPA continues its advocacy for our independent urology groups, not only on matters of government grants and loans, but on the continuing existential issues of hospital consolidation, Stark reform, and other issues critical to the viability of our independent practices.

The LUGPA website was expanded to provide links to timely information so that it can be easily found in one location. A comprehensive COVID-19 Information Hub was established with links to regularly updated sources.

We swiftly developed online programming on practical issues like implementing a telemedicine program, navigating practices through the COVID-19 crisis, and leveraging essential analytics to provide useful tips on what practices should be monitoring to become the go to resource for relevant and timely practice management information. While LUGPAOnsite is on hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, the program has gone virtual to answer questions about issues your practice are currently facing. We look forward to meeting with you in your practice when travel again resumes.

The Stay Connected Web Series: Business as UnUsual has engaged physicians and administrators to share best practices on how to lead their group through an ever-changing business climate. The five-part virtual series runs monthly through October. The After the Storm webinar series will address key issues for independent urology practices coming out of the pandemic. Our signature meetings for 2020 have gone virtual so members can safely participate.

The reasons that we came together as independent groups over 10 years ago are now even more amplified. In the Summer 2020 issue of Reviews In Urology, Richard G. Harris, MD, president of LUGPA, writes: "In times of crisis like these, LUGPA’s efforts are more important than ever."

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