The AGA Institute Education and Training Committee is sponsoring a special symposium Sunday morning titled The Business of Medicine. During the 90-minute session, a panel of experts will discuss practice management issues like coding changes, billing and reimbursement, and best practices in optimizing patient satisfaction.

“In an environment where coding and billing requirements are often moving targets and reimbursements are increasingly tied to patient-experience metrics, it’s more important than ever for clinicians to have a firm grasp on the business aspects of their clinical practices,” said Symposium Chair David Kunkel, MD, a member of the AGA Institute Education and Training Committee and assistant professor of medicine at UC San Diego Health, CA.

During the symposium, Thomas Savides, MD, will review patient experience indices and strategies to address them in the practice setting. Dr. Savides is chief experience officer, professor of clinical medicine and chief of gastroenterology clinical services at UC San Diego Health.

“This will be a very important and fruitful part of the symposium because a lot of young trainees who are entering the workforce and getting their first exposure to the business of medicine have no idea that large health care organizations will be tracking their patient experiences and assessing how they compare with other gastroenterologists,” Dr. Kunkel said. “Dr. Savides is going to tell us why and how this information is being tracked and — even if you don’t like to think of a patient as a client — why it really matters for your business practice model in 2019.”

The symposium will also feature representatives from AskMueller Consulting, LLC, one of the nation’s top coding, billing and practice management consulting groups.

“Billing and coding in gastroenterology is constantly changing. This will be a great opportunity to get some free, expert advice on how to optimize billing and coding with the latest changes to ICD-10 codes,” Dr. Kunkel said.

“When it comes to the business of medicine, we have to know things today that weren’t on our radar in medical school or even in GI fellowship. But they matter immensely,” he added. “I hope attendees will come to this symposium with questions for our experts and leave with the key things they need to know about billing and patient experience in order to survive and prosper in today’s health-care environment.”

Please refer to the DDW Mobile App or the Program & Exhibits section in the Sunday issue for the time and location of this and other DDW^® events.

In an environment where coding and billing requirements are often moving targets and reimbursements are increasingly tied to patient-experience metrics, it’s more important than ever for clinicians to have a firm grasp on the business aspects of their clinical practices.

David Kunkel, MD