Becker's ASC Review

81 GASTROENTEROLOGY ASC vs. HOPD costs for 5 most common gastroenterology procedures By Patsy Newitt H ere are the national average costs of five common gastrointestinal procedures in ASCs and hospital outpatient departments, according to Medicare's price lookup tool. 1. Small intestinal endoscopy ASC Total cost: $850 Patient pays: $169 Physician fee: $161 Facility fee: $689 Medicare pays: $679 Hospital outpatient departments Total cost: $1,786 Patient pays: $357 Physician fee: $161 Facility fee: $1,625 Medicare pays: $1,428 2. Colonoscopy, flexible with biopsy ASC Total cost: $728 Patient pays: $144 Physician fee: $204 Facility fee: $524 Medicare pays: $582 Hospital outpatient departments Total cost: $1,240 Patient pays: $247 Physician fee: $204 Facility fee: $1,036 Medicare pays: $992 3. Colonoscopy with lesion removal, snare technique ASC Total cost: $781 Patient pays: $155 Physician fee: $257 Facility fee: $524 Medicare pays: $625 Hospital outpatient departments Total cost: $1,293 Patient pays: $258 Physician fee: $257 Facility fee: $1,036 Medicare pays: $1,035 4. Diagnostic colonoscopy ASC Total cost: $589 Patient pays: $117 Physician fee: $188 Facility fee: $401 Medicare pays: $470 Hospital outpatient departments Total cost: $981 Patient pays: $195 Physician fee: $188 Facility fee: $793 Medicare pays: $784 5. Colorectal cancer screening, high-risk individual ASC Total cost: $589 Patient pays: $0 Physician fee: $188 Facility fee: $401 Medicare pays: $551 Hospital outpatient departments Total cost: $981 Patient pays: $0 Physician fee: $188 Facility fee: $793 Medicare pays: $943 n 'The expert is the AI': Where GI tech is headed By Riz Hatton M ichael Wallace, MD, chief of gastroenterology and hepa- tology at Mayo Clinic/Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City in Abu Dhabi, spoke with Becker's to discuss the future of tech in gastroenterology. Editor's note: This was edited lightly for clarity and brevity. Question: Where is GI tech headed? Dr. Michael Wallace: Everything we look at through an endoscope is now being applied through an [artificial intelligence] lens. The polyp detec- tion is the most obvious application of that — it's the low-hanging fruit. What we're going to see quite rap- idly now is AI applied to everything else that we look at. You see some- thing that looks red to you and you say, "This is inflammation." You see a flat lesion in the stomach that may be an early cancer. You see inflamma- tion in the colon that is maybe colitis and you're trying to grade that. His- torically, we've had all these different nomenclatures and different classifi- cation schemes, which have always been problematic. The experts tend to be very good, but the people who do most of these endoscopies in the world can't replicate the expert ex- perience. Now we basically put the expert in the box — the expert is the AI. The AI is in your machine. That's going to democratize high-quality endoscopy diagnostics. n

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