INTRODUCTION Rising healthcare costs have led to decreasing reimbursements for various procedures and providers. We chose to analyze Medicare reimbursement trends for 26 esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) and 31 colonoscopy current procedural terminology (CPT) codes from 2018 to 2023 for hospital outpatient centers, ambulatory surgical centers and gastroenterologists. We also wanted to look at the effects of inflation on these Medicare reimbursements. METHODS We calculated the nominal percentage change from 2018 to 2023 for each CPT code. We then took inflation data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and calculated the real change in reimbursements from 2018 to 2023 for each of the 31 colonoscopy and 26 EGD CPT codes. RESULTS Our results show that while nominal reimbursements to physicians have been steadily declining for performing gastrointestinal procedures, nominal reimbursements to hospital outpatient and ambulatory surgical centers have been increasing from 2018 to 2023. After taking into account inflation, physicians saw significant decreases in real purchasing power for performing EGD and colonoscopies. Ambulatory surgical centers and hospital outpatient centers saw reimbursements keep up with inflation. DISCUSSION Physician reimbursements by Medicare for gastroenterology procedures make up a small portion of the reimbursements by Medicare to facilities like ambulatory surgical centers and hospital outpatient centers. However physicians have seen significant reimbursement cuts while facilities have not. Moreover, higher inflation leads to increased expenses for gastroenterology practices. It remains to be seen how these reimbursement changes will affect patients access to care as well as physicians practice sustainability.

中文翻译：

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通货膨胀的复苏及其对门诊胃肠病学手术的 Medicare 报销的影响。


引言 不断上涨的医疗保健成本导致各种程序和提供者的报销减少。我们选择分析 2018 年至 2023 年医院门诊中心、门诊手术中心和胃肠病学家的 26 例食管胃十二指肠镜检查 （EGD） 和 31 例结肠镜检查当前程序术语 （CPT） 代码的医疗保险报销趋势。我们还想了解通货膨胀对这些 Medicare 报销的影响。方法 我们计算了每个 CPT 代码从 2018 年到 2023 年的名义百分比变化。然后，我们采用了美国劳工统计局提供的通货膨胀数据，计算了 2018 年至 2023 年期间 31 个结肠镜检查和 26 个 EGD CPT 代码中每个代码的报销实际变化。结果我们的结果表明，虽然医生进行胃肠道手术的名义报销一直在稳步下降，但从 2018 年到 2023 年，医院门诊和门诊手术中心的名义报销一直在增加。在考虑通货膨胀后，医生发现进行 EGD 和结肠镜检查的实际购买力显着下降。门诊手术中心和医院门诊中心的报销跟上了通货膨胀。讨论 Medicare 对胃肠病学手术的医生报销占 Medicare 对门诊手术中心和医院门诊中心等设施的报销的一小部分。然而，医生的报销大幅削减，而设施则没有。此外，更高的通货膨胀导致胃肠病学实践的费用增加。这些报销变化将如何影响患者获得护理的机会以及医生实践的可持续性还有待观察。