Administrative friction from payors—especially prior authorizations, formulary instability, and opaque coverage criteria—has reached a breaking point for gastroenterology practices, prompting the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) to shift from advocacy alone to direct collaboration with national insurers. Recognizing that legislative progress has stalled despite bipartisan awareness, AGA has begun engaging payors directly to understand their decision-making processes and identify pragmatic ways to reduce clinician burden while preserving appropriate utilization controls. Since fall 2024, AGA leadership has held ongoing discussions with major insurers focused on streamlining prior authorization workflows, improving coding clarity, aligning medical policies with evidence-based GI guidelines, and exploring value-based…
Author: Abhay Panchal
The FDA’s approval of oral semaglutide (Wegovy) marks a watershed moment for obesity and cardiometabolic care, introducing the first once-daily GLP-1 pill with weight loss and cardiovascular risk–reduction benefits. Backed by robust OASIS and SELECT trial data, the 25 mg oral formulation achieved up to 13.6% mean weight loss at 64 weeks, with consistent efficacy across sex, race, and BMI subgroups—bringing injectable-level outcomes to a pill format. Beyond convenience, the approval has major implications for long-term adherence, access, and scale, particularly for patients reluctant to start or sustain injectable therapies. With GI side effects remaining the most common adverse events…
AI is transforming colorectal cancer screening across the entire care continuum—from early risk assessment to real-time lesion detection and post-procedure follow-up. This review highlights how AI-powered colonoscopy systems are already improving adenoma detection rates, reducing inter-operator variability, and addressing one of screening’s biggest gaps: missed lesions. Beyond the procedure room, AI models are advancing blood- and stool-based screening, imaging analysis, and personalized risk stratification, with the potential to shift screening from age-based protocols to data-driven precision strategies. At the same time, the article underscores the hurdles that must be addressed for widespread adoption, including clinical validation, bias across populations, regulatory…
This year featured a wealth of clinically important publications in gastroenterology, making it difficult to choose only 10 to highlight. In the end, the new guidelines and consensus statements below were selected for their practice-changing implications. Prominent organizations, such as the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), American Gastroenterological Association (AGA), and others, weighed in on topics, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease and steatohepatitis (MASLD/MASH), Crohn’s disease, Barrett esophagus, and eosinophilic esophagitis. Taken together, these publications from expert colleagues offer high-yield overviews across the wide spectrum of gastroenterology.
The global gastroenterology market is entering a decisive growth phase, shaped by an unprecedented disease burden and rapid technological transformation. In 2025 alone, more than 1.1 billion people worldwide are affected by GI disorders, while over 112 million endoscopic procedures are performed annually—a figure climbing steadily as colorectal cancer screening expands. Valued at roughly $60 billion in 2025 and projected to exceed $100 billion by 2033, the industry is being propelled by rising GERD, IBS, IBD, and colorectal cancer cases, alongside strong hospital investment in minimally invasive diagnostics and therapies. Major markets such as the U.S., Japan, Europe, China, and…
A large French cohort study found that delays of up to 24 months after a positive fecal immunochemical test (FIT) were not associated with higher risks of colorectal cancer, advanced CRC, or advanced adenomas compared with colonoscopy at 2–3 months. Risk was instead driven by fecal hemoglobin level, with very high values conferring sharply elevated CRC risk. The authors argue screening programs should prioritize ensuring colonoscopy completion over strict timing targets.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), delivered via telehealth, significantly reduced disability in patients with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, addressing the often-overlooked psychological burden of inflammatory bowel disease. Importantly, psychologists without prior GI experience were able to deliver the therapy effectively using a structured manual, suggesting CBT could be scaled more broadly to improve quality of life and reduce healthcare utilization in IBD care.
Physicians prescribing GLP-1 therapies are being urged to “start low and go slow” to minimize gastrointestinal side effects as these drugs spread across specialties, according to experts speaking with Healio. Obesity specialist Fatima Stanford, MD, emphasized that many patients achieve significant weight loss at the lowest doses, while nausea and constipation remain the most common adverse effects, often tied to rapid titration. As GLP-1 use expands beyond endocrinology into cardiology, gastroenterology and beyond, careful dosing and patient-specific management are becoming essential.
Despite limited high-quality evidence, the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy moved forward with new guidance on preventing ergonomic-related injuries, citing the growing toll these injuries take on endoscopists. The guideline’s authors say rising procedure volumes, longer careers, and a more diverse workforce make ergonomics impossible to ignore. Lead author Swati Pawa, MD, emphasized that the goal is practical awareness — helping clinicians recognize how common these injuries are, understand key risk factors, and normalize prevention strategies. Reducing stigma around ergonomics, she noted, is essential to keeping endoscopists healthy and practicing longer.
A large meta-analysis from NYU Langone Health shows that visual estimation of colorectal polyp size is frequently wrong, differing from standardized measurements by an average of nearly 1.7 mm and achieving only 60% accuracy overall. Errors worsened with larger polyps — which were often underestimated — raising the risk of inappropriate surveillance intervals and missed cancers. Notably, AI-based measurement tools dramatically outperformed human estimation, improving accuracy more than sevenfold, pointing to a clear opportunity to standardize polyp sizing and reduce downstream screening errors.