Bringing in a physician partner has many advantages: A partner may help your practice grow and become more successful; partners allow you to share the workload and to combine skills with another provider; and you can enrich your practice by having a solid teammate. However, business partners can become your greatest asset or worst liability. Deciding whether or not to share your practice with someone else may be one of the most important business decisions you ever make. Deciding who you go into business with can be just as important.
Author: Abhay Panchal
CHICAGO — Surgeons in the Veterans Affairs (VA) medical system did a poorer job at detecting adenomas during routine colonoscopies compared with gastroenterologists, a review of VA data suggested. With results analyzed from nearly 670,000 colonoscopies performed in the VA system, adenoma detection rates were 53% for gastroenterologists versus 41% for surgeons, according to Andrew Gawron, MD, PhD, of the University of Utah and the VA Salt Lake City Health Care System. This gap was apparent irrespective of patient sex or age, and whether the procedures were for routine screening or for follow-up of positive fecal tests results, Gawron told…
AGA is profoundly alarmed and disappointed by UnitedHealthcare’s (UHC) prior authorization requirement for gastroenterology endoscopy services for all commercial plans, regardless of the outpatient location. Speeding up access to care for patients by reforming prior authorization is our #1 advocacy priority. At our meeting at DDW®, the AGA Governing Board allocated the resources necessary for a sustained fight against the prior authorization policy United Healthcare plans to implement on June 1. Read more about AGA’s position in this press release. UnitedHealthcare’s expansion of prior authorization for most physician-prescribed endoscopy procedures — effective June 1 — could disrupt time-sensitive care for…
CHICAGO — Adding a dedicated patient navigator improved fecal immunochemical testing completion and return rates and resulted in significant savings to the health care system, according to data presented at Digestive Disease Week. “A patient navigator is someone whose dedicated role is to help guide patients through the health care system, removing barriers to care wherever possible,” Hannah Winthrop Fiske, MD, an internal medicine resident at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, told Healio. “Health care disparities are dramatically apparent when examining CRC screening rates.”
Dr. K is joined by Dr. Rockford Yapp, co-founder of GI Partners of IL, founder and chairman of the West Suburban Gut Club, and chairman of the board for the Dupage County Medical Society. They focus on the provider side of things specifically in private GI practice. To stream our Station live 24/7 visit www.HealthcareNOWRadio.com or ask your Smart Device to “….Play Healthcare NOW Radio.” Find all of our network podcasts on your favorite podcast platforms and be sure to subscribe and like us. Learn more at www.healthcarenowradio.com/listen
If you are interested in nutrition, you have likely heard the term, ‘gut microbiome,’ but what is it, and why is it important? Dr. Chris Damman, clinical associate professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology at UW Medicine shares how our bodies are transformed by bioactive compounds in the foods we eat. He addresses how a new approach to what we put in our bodies is inspiring next generation nutritional approaches to non-communicable diseases. You can find more information from Dr. Damman on his blog, Gut Bites: https://gutbites.org
Hoping to lure US physicians northward, the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and Ontario are now allowing those who are board certified to start practicing medicine immediately with full licensure. They’ll no longer have to start with a limited license and take additional exams or be supervised for up to a year to become fully licensed. Canada is experiencing an acute shortage of licensed physicians that’s expected to intensify over the next decade. The shortfall is estimated to be about 44,000 physicians by 2028, with family doctors accounting for 72% of the deficit. “Reducing licensing barriers should make Canada a…
ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, can provide easily understandable, scientifically adequate, and generally satisfactory answers to common patient questions about colonoscopy, new research suggests. “This study shows that a conversational AI program can generate credible medical information in response to common patient questions,” say the investigators, led by Tsung-Chun Lee, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Taipei Medical University Shuang Ho Hospital, New Taipei City, Taiwan. “With dedicated domain training, there is meaningful potential to optimize clinical communication to patients undergoing colonoscopy,” they add. The study was published online May 5 in Gastroenterology. ChatGPT developed by OpenAI, is a natural…
AT DDW 2023 CHICAGO – Improving access to preventive health care services, such as colorectal cancer screening, for the poor and uninsured has led to better health outcomes, shows a study presented on May 6 in Chicago at the annual Digestive Disease Week®. Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, reported that states with expanded Medicaid coverage had significantly higher rates of colorectal cancer (CRC) screening than states where officials refused federal support for Medicaid expansion. Led by Megan R. McLeod, MD, an internal medicine resident at the University of California, Los Angeles, researchers compared CRC screening rates in…
CHICAGO — The standard approaches to measuring flares in people with Crohn’s disease have some limitations, including an inability to signal a change in disease activity without laboratory testing or before symptoms arise. A new device developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology could change all that.Using data collected via a passive at-home monitoring device (Emerald sensor, Emerald Innovations Inc), researchers found that increases in breathing rate, more awakenings at night, and slower walking speed accurately predicted that a person’s Crohn’s disease activity was about to flare, according to a study presented May 7 at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2023.In some…