Banding Bulletin – September 2018

Banding Bulletin – September 2018

Tips and Tricks – Take advantage of your “sneak peek” at the patient!

As surgeons, our first exposure to a patient is when they walk into our office for their initial visit.  Conversely, GIs often meet their patients before or at the time of the patient’s colonoscopy.  This provides an opportunity to examine the patient prior to their appointment to address their hemorrhoids.

In our training sessions, all too often, a significant percentage of patients cannot be banded because of one or more non-hemorrhoidal issues (primarily anal fissures) that are bothering the patient alongside their hemorrhoids.  These same issues were present a couple of weeks before the session – when the patient was in the endo suite – but they were not appreciated because the DRE was performed after the patient was sedated!

While exceptions certainly do occur, if the patient has any discomfort in the midline (posterior more commonly than anterior), and if they don’t have an abscess or a fistula, they likely have a fissure.  By initiating treatment for that fissure immediately, by the time they return to your office for their hemorrhoids to be cared for, that fissure is “cooled off” to the point where the patient can be treated.  This increases office efficiency, patient satisfaction, and lessens the chance of a post-banding issue.

A full discussion of this is beyond the scope of this piece, so for a more detailed discussion, please have a look at THIS VIDEO.

Educational Resources

A host of educational materials are available on our physician-centric CRH website (www.crhmedicalproducts.com), each designed to help you and your practice provide the finest, most effective and efficient care possible to your patients.  These include:

• Clinical and Practice Management forms.  Examples include information on post-banding and nitroglycerin, fiber instructions, sample progress notes, billing/coding FAQs, patient consent forms along with a host of other documents. These can all be found (most in multiple languages) HERE
• Along the vertical navigation bar, you will find additional pages for Clinical Pearls, FAQs, Patient Education and Marketing Materials, Videos, an archive of previous Banding Bulletins, etc.
• The CRH Medical App for your smartphone or tablet!  Versions are available for both iOS as well as Android and the app is offered at no cost

CRH Anesthesia Continues to Grow!

Earlier this month, CRH Anesthesia proudly announced its 19^th acquisition, this one in my old hometown of Cleveland, bringing the number of ASCs where CRH provides anesthesia to 45 in 10 states, performing close to 300,000 cases per year!  Not coincidentally, my Cleveland Browns have outperformed their last two seasons combined since that acquisition was announced!  If you are interested in helping your bottom line as well as your favorite football team, we would love to talk to you!  We can work with practices that:

• Have an existing anesthesia service, and would like to monetize some or all of the equity built up in that service
• Currently “outsource” their anesthesia and would like to bring the services “in house”
• Currently provide conscious sedation and would like to develop a “MAC” program

We have worked with independent groups as well as groups affiliated with a number of ASC partners, so if you have any interest in learning more about the various opportunities available to you, please contact Carter Blanton, who heads up the business development efforts of CRH Anesthesia or ME.

We would love to speak with you, obtain a bit of information and then see how to tailor a program to best meet your group’s needs.

Come Visit Us at the ACG!

CRH will be in Philly in full force for the ACG, October 7-9 in the exhibit hall at Booth # 523.  We’ll also hold a presentation in the Product Theater:

Withstanding GI Reimbursement Pressures

Monday, October 8^th at 12:45pm

Lunch will be provided and your attendance enters you in a draw for an iPad Pro.

You’ll hear from Jay Kreger, President of CRH Anesthesia, as well as myself on the hemorrhoid side of the world.

Space is limited – click here to RSVP

If you’re attending the hands-on at ACG, try out the device for yourself at the hemorrhoid therapies station on Monday 2pm-4:40pm and Tuesday 1:45-4:20pm.

We’d love to see you, answer any questions you might have, provide any support that we can, and just to check in to see how things are going!  Safe travels and we’ll hope to see you there!

Training and Marketing Support Available!

Please let us know if you are interested in being trained in the use of the CRH O’Regan System, if a “refresher” session would be helpful, if you have partners or friends that are interested in adding these procedures to their practice, or if any of your group’s Advanced Practitioners are interested in learning more about anorectal care, and we’ll get you on our calendar.  In addition, we have all sorts of marketing and informational resources available, designed to help our current “banders” to better care for their patients as well as to grow their practice.  Please contact ME if any of the above interests you, and we’ll get the ball rolling.