When your primary care Doctor prescribes a GI procedure, such as a colonoscopy, they usually have one of their nurses make the appointment for you. Convenient, yes, but, did you know that you still have the right to request the location of the procedure.
There are a number of advantages to requesting the appointment be made for the Endoscopy Center of GI Associates. The Endoscopy Center is an outpatient facility that provides both comfort and convenience to patients needing GI procedures. In our facility, patients coming in to have procedures done tend to experience less hassle and shorter waiting times than those patients using a hospital setting. Hospital outpatient departments cannot always provide the focused attention that GI Associates can as they are trying to accomplish many things at one time. The gastroenterologists at GI Associates strive to do one thing and to do it well.
GI Associates understands that your time is precious and tries to keep their turn around time between 1-2 hours for procedures done at the Endoscopy Center. Contrast that to the average time spent in hospital, for the same procedure, which can be up to 4 hours. In addition, to ensure faster results the GI Associates employ two full-time pathologists whose job is to focus solely on gastroenterology and to provide the highest level of care for the patients of GI Associates. These pathologists work to try and complete your pathology within 24 hours of a procedure and the results and procedure notes are sent to your primary care doctor within 48 hours.
The Endoscopy Center allows GI Associates to monitor physician quality indicators such as polyp detection rates, withdrawal times and complications and use the results to ensure a level of care that is better than national standard. Many hospitals do not monitor these results and have no oversight into the quality of their services.
So, if you have your primary care physician make your GI appointment, please request the Endoscopy Center of GI Associates. If you already know it's time to have a procedure, you can make your own appointment. GI physicians are an "open access" practice and do not require referrals from a primary care Doctor. Call today, at 601-366-1234.
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