Various industries are facing pronounced workforce issues. At the same time, trade associations are facing increasing pressure to do more for members beyond their bread-and-butter advocacy missions. One project from a medical association suggests a way that trade groups can address both.

Like a lot of trades, LUGPA, which represents independent urology practices, does a lot of Capitol Hill work, focused on issues such as physician reimbursement and pharmacy benefit manager reform. “There’s lots of other urology groups that serve other needs, but this niche of independent practices was one that was not addressed with the groups that were out there,” says LUGPA CEO Celeste Kirschner, MHSA, CAE.

But that effort runs in tandem with a serious workforce problem: According to research from the American Urological Association, 62 percent of U.S. counties don’t have a single active urologist. And it’s beyond the capacity of LUGPA, with a ten-person staff, to make serious headway there. “We don’t have any control over how many new urologists graduate every year,” Kirschner says. “One way to do that is to accept more people into residency, but it’s a complex system with Medicare reimbursement and so forth. So we’ve had to get a little bit creative trying to find physicians who are willing to go into private practice.”

LUGPA has launched efforts to better communicate the lay of the land in the specialty to physicians: Since 2019 it’s hosted a residency summit and job fair. But while that may assist with the job pipeline in the years to come, it doesn’t necessarily address the pain points that working independent urologists are facing now. LUGPA’s research suggests that such solutions are what trade association members are looking for out of their membership.

So earlier this year, LUGPA launched Uro^MA, an online training course designed for medical assistants in urology practices. The course responds to the need for already strained practices to get assistants up to speed on the particulars of urology as quickly as possible. “We try to advantage our member groups to do the best kind of care, and give them tools they can use as they care for their patients,” Kirschner says. “[Uro^MA] allows groups to have a resource. Most of them have had their own sorts of homegrown things, but this is something that’s available to member groups for free…. We don’t cover basic medical assistant training, but we cover procedures and certain things unique to urology.”

Member surveys suggested that there was an urgent need for the resource: “It was overwhelmingly the case that they said that would be a very good helpful thing for them to have in their practices,” Kirschner says. And the response has borne that out: In the five months since its launch, more than 800 people have enrolled in the course—good numbers in urology, a field has only 15,000 licensed practitioners nationwide. 

Such efforts provide more immediate support while LUGPA looks at longer-term challenges. “Everybody wants to expand their practice using nurse practitioners or physician assistants, but it’s difficult to find individuals, particularly if you’re in a rural area,” she says. “Our focus as an association is on advocacy, of course, but we also focus on the business of urology.”