As gastroenterology evolves, leaders are reimagining how to deliver comprehensive, patient-centered care.
Dinesh Madhok, MD, CEO of Jacksonville, Fla.-based Borland Groover, joined Becker’s to discuss embracing new service lines such as chronic care management and obesity-related liver disease could be the new frontier of patient care in the long-term.
Editor’s note: This interview was edited lightly for clarity and length.
Question: What are you prioritizing in the next three to five years?
Dr. Dinesh Madhok: We’re fortunate to be very strong in our market and able to attract very good leaders and physicians. With the realignment, we have a new CFO who came from a hospital system and a new COO who came from a private equity–based system. They’ve brought a lot of new ideas and knowledge that we didn’t have a deep understanding of before. Their joining us has given us a lot to think about and a lot to do over the next few years.
Over the last five years, we’ve opened four new surgery centers in Northeast Florida. We have plans to open another one in the Panhandle. We’re growing in this area, trying to maximize access for our patients and maximize quality. We’re also starting new service lines that we think are really important — chronic care management is one of them.
As you know, obesity and fatty liver are such big issues in GI these days. Unfortunately, all of us are getting heavier, and liver disease is increasing. With all the new drugs coming out, we think there’s a big opportunity for us to manage that and take ownership of that disease entity completely, rather than people just going on weight loss drugs on their own.
Another area that’s coming up a lot is the gut microbiome. Almost every day, patients ask about probiotics or microbiome health. I think that’s a big niche that nobody in the medical field is really filling right now. There are some alternative physicians who talk about it, but it hasn’t come on in a big way. There’s a lot of opportunity to learn about it and understand what disease entities are affected. So, we’re going to focus on these areas, grow our endoscopic footprint, start some new lines of business, and keep doing what we’re already doing, but better.
Q: Why is it that GI doesn’t typically expand into the kinds of business lines you described?
DM: I think this might apply to medicine in general. I’m originally from India, so I come with a little different perspective. I did my medical training there and my residency and fellowship here.
The U.S. medical system is, unfortunately or fortunately, very financially oriented. If a particular service doesn’t make a lot of money — if it’s not a big procedure like a hip surgery or a major GI intervention — it tends to be undervalued. Primary care doesn’t do as well as specialties financially.
We really want to focus on the whole patient — on prevention and long-term care. These kinds of conditions don’t generate procedures, so they’re not always advantageous if your only focus is the bottom line. But our group’s focus is more on the whole patient and overall care.
