Akron (Ohio) Digestive Disease Consultants partner and American College of Gastroenterology Board of Governors Chair Costas Kefalas, MD, shared his thoughts with Becker's ASC Review on the challenges of increased regulation and the importance of embracing emerging technology.
1. On increased regulation: One of the greatest challenges in 2018 is the increasing regulations in medicine and their effects not only on patient care — be they fulfilling MIPS requirements or addressing prior authorizations and denials of routine labs and imaging or medications — but also their impact on the business of medicine, most especially on small, independent practices. Significant time and staff effort is required daily to address these regulations, and creative solutions for these requirements need to be continuously sought for the GI practice to remain successful.
2. On technology utilization: The best opportunity for GI physicians to be successful this year is to increasingly utilize current and emerging technology to optimize both patient care, especially the quality aspect, as well as practice efficiency. We must continue to embrace the proposition that good quality care is both good for patients and for the GI practice. Being transparent, by measuring, reporting and improving our quality data allows for this, and as gastroenterologists, we are fortunate to have a specialty-specific quality data registry option in the GI Quality Improvement Consortium. This quality data will be increasingly requested by not only government and private payers, but also consumers — our patients.