To capture patients who find the traditional two-visit colonoscopy process too onerous, some practices have implemented “fast-track” colonoscopy programs. Such programs can save patients and practices time and money and open the door to a new group of patients who’ve never been screened.
“The whole reason Valley [Health System] embarked on this fast-track colonoscopy program is to increase access to colorectal screening,” Mitchell J. Rubinoff, MD, the chief of gastroenterology at Valley Medical Group in Paramus, N.J., told Gastroenterology & Endoscopy News. From inception, the idea behind the program, Dr. Rubinoff said, was “to get people in who weren’t seeing primary care doctors, didn’t know about colonoscopy [or] didn’t know how to get it done.”