A new study published in The American Journal of Managed Care finds that an employer-sponsored digital digestive care management program significantly reduced healthcare spending for employees with chronic GI conditions. In a propensity-matched analysis, participants using virtual digestive care—combining symptom tracking, personalized nutrition therapy, health coaching, and education—had 18% lower total healthcare costs after one year compared with nonparticipants. This translated to $2,026 in annual savings per member. With an average program cost of $345 per member per year, the intervention generated a 5.87:1 return on investment, driven largely by reductions in inpatient admissions and emergency department visits, despite slightly…
Author: Abhay Panchal
Cedars-Sinai has received a $1.8 million grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to expand its IBD prehabilitation program internationally, starting with hospitals in Israel. The program—developed at Cedars-Sinai and led by Gil Melmed, MD—uses a 10-week, multidisciplinary pre-surgical approach combining nutrition, mental health support, and physical therapy before and after surgery. It has been shown to reduce post-operative complications, 30-day readmissions, repeat surgeries, and opioid use among patients with inflammatory bowel disease.
As gastroenterology heads into 2026, leaders across clinical, academic, and operational settings see the specialty at an inflection point—shaped by AI, workforce strain, reimbursement pressures, and shifting care models. In a recent feature by Becker’s ASC Review, GI leaders shared what they believe will most disrupt the field in the year ahead.
Private equity investment in healthcare hit a record $191 billion in 2025, according to new data from Bain & Company, underscoring healthcare’s position as one of PE’s most resilient and attractive sectors. Healthcare’s scale, durable demand from aging demographics, and long-standing underinvestment in technology continue to draw capital. Pharma and provider services dominated deal activity last year, with growing interest in pharma services infrastructure (including packaging, filling, and sterilization for injectables like GLP-1s), clinical trial sites, and data and analytics firms. On the provider side, PE firms are increasingly backing health IT, workflow automation, and diagnostic technologies aimed at improving…
In a new editorial in Gastroenterology, Jason A. Dominitz and Douglas J. Robertson examine a central tension in colorectal cancer (CRC) screening: does colonoscopy overdiagnose low-risk lesions, or does FIT risk detecting disease too late? The discussion is prompted by new analyses from the COLONPREV study, which compared colonoscopy-based screening with biennial fecal immunochemical testing (FIT) in more than 57,000 average-risk individuals. While prior results showed FIT to be noninferior to colonoscopy for CRC mortality, deeper analysis of premalignant lesions complicates that conclusion. Key insights from COLONPREV:
Researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have shown that exhaled breath can reflect the composition of the gut microbiome, opening the door to a rapid, noninvasive way to assess gut health. The findings were published in Cell Metabolism. The study demonstrates that gut microbes release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) during digestion, which are expelled through the lungs and detectable in breath. By analyzing breath and stool samples from healthy children, researchers found a strong correspondence between specific breath compounds and the microbes present in the gut. Similar results were confirmed in…
Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have uncovered a key immune pathway that may explain why patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) face a markedly higher risk of colorectal cancer. The findings, published in Immunity, point to new opportunities for risk stratification, monitoring, and prevention in IBD care. The study centers on TL1A, an inflammatory signaling protein already implicated in IBD and a current therapeutic target in clinical trials. Using preclinical models, investigators showed that TL1A drives tumor-promoting inflammation indirectly—by activating gut-resident innate lymphoid cells (ILC3s). Once activated, these cells release GM-CSF, triggering a systemic response known as emergency granulopoiesis, in…
A recent analysis explores the growing clinical interest in postbiotics—non-viable microbial products such as short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), bacterial lysates, and microbial metabolites—as a potential next phase in microbiome-based therapy. Unlike probiotics, postbiotics do not contain live organisms, which makes them mechanistically attractive for patients who cannot tolerate probiotics or are at higher risk for adverse effects. Proposed benefits include improved gut barrier integrity, immune modulation, anti-inflammatory effects, and metabolic signaling, largely driven by SCFAs like butyrate and propionate.
Gastroenterology reimbursement continues to erode under Medicare and commercial payment models, even as operating costs, staffing pressures and inflation rise. From steep long-term inflation-adjusted cuts to new 2026 ASC reductions, here are 10 data points illustrating how reimbursement trends are reshaping GI practice economics: 1. Beginning Jan. 1, 2026, Medicare will reduce payments for GI endoscopy services performed in ASCs by an average of 8%, while increasing reimbursement for office-based E/M visits. 2. Between 2018 and 2023, inflation-adjusted Medicare payments to physicians for colonoscopies declined by more than 22%, according to The American Journal of Gastroenterology.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a medical device early alert for certain lots of AXIOS Stent and Electrocautery-Enhanced Delivery System manufactured by Boston Scientific, following reports of deployment failures that may result in serious injury, procedural complications, or death. The affected devices are used in therapeutic endoscopy for transgastric or transduodenal drainage of pancreatic fluid collections (including pseudocysts and walled-off necrosis) and, in select high-risk patients, for gallbladder drainage in acute cholecystitis. According to the FDA, the issue occurs during stent delivery and deployment, when the device may fail to expand or deploy as intended. Successfully implanted…