by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 22, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, Quality Payment Program, US Wound Registry
Selecting Measures Beginning in 2015, measure selection took on a whole new meaning. No longer was it “ok” to simply pick a few measures that your EHR could easily capture the data and send the results off to CMS. Where once you were paid for reporting, P4R, now with...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 21, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
What you need to know to achieve Success with PQRS While some of the background about PQRS is a review of preview posts, I have included the material so that you have all the basic information in one place and can use this as an easy reference about PQRS. I will do...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 15, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
On October 16, 2015 The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released changes to the Meaningful Use program which take effect in 2015 and continue through 2017. The goal of this Final Rule is to reduce the complexity of the EHR Incentive Program and...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 14, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
A few days ago I got an email from a very respected colleague that went like this: “You said that US Wound Registry is Vendor Neutral, however, I asked my hospital IT guru to find out if we could participate and she said no. We are using [she named a major hospital...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 8, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
Twitter.com@CarolineFifeMD Last week we established that the risk of not participating in PQRS is not limited to the penalties of PQRS. There are penalties for your Value Modifier tied to PQRS. You have two options for participating in PQRS as a wound care and/or...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 7, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
The US healthcare “fee for service” payment system is rapidly transitioning away from one based on volume to one that is determined by “value” and which links cost to improved patient outcomes. The problem with the current system is that patients who stay in service...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 2, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
This 51 year old man has horribly painful ulcerations on the plantar surface of both feet. He was cured of Hepatitis C with Sofosbuvir a year ago. The ulcer did not improve with prednisone, cyclosporine, or topical Aczone gel. After multiple biopsies the lesion was...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 1, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
I’m happy to announce the open access publication of another of the Wound Healing Index predictive models in the December issue of Advances in Skin & Wound Care: December 2015 – Volume 28 – Issue 12 – p 560–572...