SANDY — More people are experiencing chronic digestive health conditions and colon cancer is being diagnosed at younger ages, prompting one of Utah’s largest health care companies to increase options to treat them.
Intermountain Health is opening free-standing endoscopy centers on the campuses of three of its hospitals to give patients an option for more affordable procedures.
“With the opening of our new endoscopy centers, Intermountain Health is increasing access to a lower-cost alternative for digestive health diagnostic and therapeutic procedures to prevent, identify and treat digestive health conditions in earlier stages,” said Dr. Nathan Merriman, senior medical director of Intermountain Health’s Surgical Specialties and Digestive Health Clinical Program.
In a statement issued on Friday, Intermountain officials said the facilities will have lower overhead and fewer licensing requirements than a hospital, so services can be offered at a lower cost. Trends show that people across the country are turning to stand-alone surgery and imaging centers to keep out-of-pocket costs low.
The first Intermountain endoscopy center is already open in Sandy, on the Alta View Hospital campus, and the other two are planned near Riverton Hospital and at McKay-Dee Hospital, in Ogden.
The three centers will provide colonoscopies and other endoscopy procedures to examine the esophagus, stomach and small intestine. These procedures can help address swallowing difficulties, abdominal pain, chronic bowel issues and hemorrhoids, as well as diagnose serious conditions like Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, diverticulitis and/or cancer.
“Digestive health is coming more to the forefront as Americans are paying more attention to healthy eating, nutrition, gut health and maintaining a healthy weight. Intermountain Health is helping patients be more proactive about their digestive health through comprehensive, team-based care with each patient,” the statement said.
Intermountain Health said offering endoscopy services in a lower-cost setting is a way the organization can meet its nonprofit mission to improve the overall health of the communities it serves.
The locations will be managed by Surgery Partners, a company that already operates multiple Intermountain Health surgery centers in Utah, in addition to locations in 29 other states. Merriman said the company’s philosophy of providing high-quality and cost-effective solutions aligns with Intermountain Health’s mission.
Despite being one of the more preventable forms of cancer, colon cancer caused about 53,000 deaths in the United States last year, according to the American Cancer Society, which estimates more than 100,000 new cases will be diagnosed this year.
Colonoscopy screening is recommended starting at age 45, or earlier for people with a family history of colon cancer. A colonoscopy does not require a referral for treatment at the Alta View Endoscopy Center, but upper endoscopy procedures will.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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