What Are the Most Effective Ways to Reduce the Costs of Endoscopic Procedures?

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(Newswire.net — September 2, 2021) — Here are some ideas and suggestions on how to reduce the costs of endoscopic procedures. 

Cost Reductions for Endoscopic Procedures 

The leading cause of cancer death in the US is colorectal cancer [Mandel et al., 2008; Siegel, DeSantis, & Jemal, 2014], making screening procedures with colonoscopies that much more important in early detection and removal of the malignancy. Sedation primarily takes the form of an opioid named benzodiazepine, while anesthesia providers use Propofol. Studies suggest that sedation by Propofol was more expensive, despite the fact that patients are discharged more quickly than those with a benzodiazepine. 

It is estimated that gastroenterologists can reduce overall costs by discharging more patients through the use of Propofol, thereby bringing down the overall costs of gastroenterology procedures. Sedation is but one of many elements to consider vis-a-vis the costs of endoscopic procedures.

Targeted Intervention & Efficiency Analysis to Achieve Endoscopic Cost Savings

A detailed gastrointestinal endoscopic study conducted by authors Kaushal, Chang, Lee, and Muthusamy focused on finding inventive ways to enhance the operational performance in endoscopy. With an increasing need for endoscopic procedures, enhanced efficiency is required. The patient sample included scheduled outpatients undergoing endoscopic procedures. Some 2248 patients underwent 2713 procedures in phase 1, and phase 2 of the study. 

The study found that endoscopy unit efficiency is not particularly affected by room turnover times and the ratio per operating room to the endoscopist. Rather, the authors of the study focused on developing a method for identifying all of those factors which hamstring operational efficiency and keep costs unnecessarily high. While this study did not provide workable solutions, it highlighted the need for identifying those factors responsible for high costs of operations.

Costs of Endoscopic Procedures vs Surgical Procedures

Advanced endoscopic procedures are particularly expensive, and very little literature is devoted to the cost function in these surgeries. Another study published on ScienceDirect by ElSevier (Carme Lora, Vincen Mayor, Fernando Fernandez-Banaresm Maria Esteve, et al) used detailed calculations of costs for each procedure carried out in advanced endoscopic operations. This included the time, consumables, stents, pathology, medication personnel, materials, and recovery room time. 

38 advanced endoscopic procedures were scrutinized in this study, with the lowest cost of gastroscopy and APC at €116.57, and the highest cost was ERCP with cholangioscopy & stent placement at €5,083.65. The majority of procedures average between €1,000 and €2,000. The study also found that endoscopic alternatives were between 2X and 5X more cost-efficient than surgery in 57% of cases. By the end of the study, it was concluded that the majority of endoscopic procedures were more cost-effective than their surgical alternatives.

Standardizing Endoscopy Programs

As a case in point, the Digestive Disease & Surgery Institute staff doctors perform some 85,000+ endoscopic procedures across 22 Cleveland Clinic hospitals, endoscopic centers, and ambulatory surgery centers around the world. While outcomes have generally been high quality, various department chairs felt that it was necessary to standardize procedures around the world. Not only does this ensure a high standard of care, but it also helps to lower the costs of endoscopic procedures. To this end, various committees were established, including reprocessing committees, equipment evaluation committees, and practice development committees.

Single-Use Endoscopes Are Helping to Reduce Costs

It was found that different practitioners used different types of endoscopes, but all of them needed periodic replacement, maintenance, and cleaning. This presented a cost-saving paradigm for the Digestive Disease & Surgery Institute and all of its branches and agencies worldwide. The advent of the coronavirus pandemic has fast-tracked the need for lower-cost, single-use endoscopic material for widespread use. Disposable endoscopes a.k.a. single-use endoscopes have come into their own as a popular option in recent times. 

They are patient-specific, with much lower incidences of contamination and infection. Customized single-use endoscopes featuring micro cameras at just 1 mm are proving to be superior in terms of cost and value, and ideal for single-use applications in endoscopies. Nowadays, cost-effectiveness is an increasingly important consideration for endoscopies, and leading micro-imaging technologies are already making waves in this industry. 

With a single use endoscope, no maintenance is required, no cleaning is needed, and there are no delays between procedures. This reduces costs, allowing for more patients to undergo endoscopic procedures with reduced risks of infection, and contamination. 

Other Cost-Effective Solutions

When endoscopies are performed at an outpatient facility, there are significant cost savings to enjoy. Any inpatient procedure requires the patient to be hospitalized overnight, often at exorbitant costs. These are certainly more affordable alternatives that have brought down the costs of endoscopic procedures tremendously. Of course, it’s important to have access to a medical plan/health care plan with a low deductible and high coverage. This may mean more in monthly premiums, but it translates into less out-of-pocket expenses for the actual procedure from the deductible.

Of course, like any major procedure that needs to be undertaken, costs will vary from one facility or practitioner to the next. While quality should never be sacrificed for cost, there are high-quality gastroenterologists offering their services at lower costs than the premium providers. This ensures you get a fair price for your endoscopic procedure without having to break the bank. Additional cost-saving options include negotiating your medical bill with the hospital and requesting generic prescriptions of medication, or more cost-effective medications, for painkillers, antibiotics, anesthesia, and the like.