Chicago-based GI Partners of Illinois saw its GI case mix tilt toward more complex, chronic and multidisciplinary care in 2025, COO Dr. Geogy Vennikandam told Becker’s.
Editor’s note: This interview was edited lightly for clarity and length.
Question: Do you want to talk a little bit about how your case mix changed in 2025 and what changes you expect in 2026?
Dr. Geogy Vennikandam: We definitely saw a noticeable shift toward more complex GI pathology across our sites in 2025. A couple of trends stood out: higher rates of advanced endoscopy utilization — EMR, ESD, ERCP-related evaluations. I noticed an increase in IBD, metabolic liver disease and GERD-related diagnostic volumes. There’s continued strong demand for colorectal cancer screening, though increasingly risk-stratified.
And there’s growth in patients requiring multidisciplinary management. That creates opportunities for us in CCM, nutrition and hepatology expansion.
Looking into 2026, I anticipate a continued rise in NASH-related diagnostic and management needs, increased use of AI-augmented clinical pathways to refine case distribution by complexity, and a stronger demand for same-day access. One benefit of coming to an independent group like ours versus a hospital is same-day access and short-interval follow-up, especially with our virtual-first models that support it.
So our case mix is becoming more complex, more chronic and more multidisciplinary. We’re building the infrastructure to meet that shift head-on.
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