FIT as a population-based and financially viable method to screen underserved patients for colorectal cancer.

Abstract

e13516 Background: Temple University Hospital (TUH) created an initiative to increase colorectal cancer (CRC) screening by administering fecal immunochemical tests (FIT) to the underserved population of Philadelphia. We hypothesize that this will increase the percentage of diagnostic colonoscopies performed compared to baseline in our fixed capacity colonoscopy suite and ultimately generate a higher reimbursement per colonoscopy. This potential revenue increase can help fund the infrastructure to administer a large quantity of FIT tests to the community and create a truly equitable population-based approach to CRC screening. Methods: 27,169 colonoscopies and their associated CPT codes from 2017-2022 performed at TUH were analyzed. 16 individual CPT codes were identified and categorized as either screening or diagnostic CPT codes. Reimbursement for each of the CPT codes was determined by the Medicare reimbursement per CPT code and used to determine the average reimbursement per screening CPT code and average reimbursement per diagnostic CPT code. A Monte Carolo simulation model was created using Palisades @Risk software to compare the reimbursements of FIT test prompted vs. non-FIT test prompted colonoscopies over a range of possible distributions of diagnostic CPT codes. Monte Carlo simulations model scenarios that incorporate uncertainties with the objective of providing a distribution of outcomes from the least likely to most likely outcomes. Results: The historical distribution of screening vs. diagnostic CPT codes at TUH is 31% and 69%, respectively, with an average Medicare reimbursement of $2,668 per colonoscopy. We have distributed 292 FIT tests, and 5 FIT test prompted colonoscopies have been completed with 7 associated CPT codes. The preliminary distribution of screening CPT codes vs diagnostic CPT codes is 29% and 71%, respectively, with an average reimbursement of $2,691. Lastly, we used a Monte Carlo simulation to run 10 separate simulations with 5000 iterations each to show the most likely reimbursement rates over a possible distribution of diagnostic colonoscopies (Table). Conclusions: Our preliminary data suggests FIT testing can offer three main benefits: 1) Expansion of the number of patients receiving CRC screening; 2) triage optimization of the fixed capacity colonoscopy suite by performing more diagnostic colonoscopies than screening colonoscopies to diagnose more colorectal pathologies; and 3) funding for a population based FIT testing campaign by utilizing the Medicare reimbursement delta from screening to diagnostic colonoscopies. [Table: see text]