Healthcare providers spoke with Becker's on a number of topics this week, including price transparency, the future of gastroenterology and COVID-19 vaccination mandates.
What we heard this week:
'Seize the opportunity to market yourself' with price transparency, ASC leaders told
Colleen Ingraham. President of the McMahon Group, COO of the Prairie Spine & Pain Institute and Co-founder of Illinois Free Market Medical Association: If you don't have transparent prices, you've probably already started to cast doubt in some buyers' minds. You may even be in their existing local network, and they have a $5,000 deductible within their employer arrangement, but they still may choose one of the centers that is already transparent. You'll have no patient responsibility, and you'll get paid on the day of surgery. You will not only eliminate that burden, which is the whole idea, but now you have a patient showing up and saying, 'This is great. I saved this much money.' So now we've reversed, turned it all on its head. And that's your opportunity.
'Human-centered, team-based and data-informed': Gastroenterology in 2031
Nate Merriman, MD. Medical Director for Gastrointestinal and Digestive Health at Intermountain Healthcare (Murray, Utah): Gastroenterology 10 years from now will be more human-centered, team-based and data-informed. There will be predictive analytics in place at the population health level and the individual level to help us better predict and prevent disease, in particular, cancer, before it happens. Based on individual-level data using personal genomics in combination with aggregate population-level data and individual patient health monitoring, we will be able to identify early relevant patterns. We will then be able to reach out to patients in a team-based, proactive care format to help support patients with needed testing or procedures, or with specific diet, activity or medication recommendations to help patients and families achieve the health and wellness goals they are striving for.
Vaccination mandates are hurting ASCs, Pennsylvania administrator says
Joe Peluso. Administrator of Aestique Surgery Center (Greensburg, Pa.): The inconsistency of the COVID-19 vaccination mandate places ASCs, as well as healthcare systems, in a unique compromising position to deliver quality care critical for the health and well-being of the communities served. Few issues are as important as the challenges facing the healthcare workforce, such as retirement, burnout, staff shortages, etc., many of which were present prior to the pandemic and are now only exacerbated and accelerated by the vaccine mandate.
The reality is that if the vaccine mandates are not permanently rescinded, the gaps created in the healthcare workforce employment will result in a serious inability to meet the needs of patients who have increasingly been relying upon the healthcare delivery system, especially the growing elderly and vulnerable populations.