by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 12, 2025 | Healthcare Payment Policy
Millions of Instructions Per Snooze? OK, MIPS actually stands for the Merit Based Incentive Payment System. This is not an area of expertise that I wanted to acquire – but I am committed to ensuring that hard-working wound care practitioners do not lose money because...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 10, 2025 | Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
Lin Weaver and colleagues have published a fascinating report in Nature Scientific Reports “A double-blind randomized trial of hyperbaric oxygen for persistent symptoms after brain injury.” You should read the entire paper, but a brief summary is as follows: Adults...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 7, 2025 | Cellular / Tissue-Based Products, CTP / Skin Substitutes
Many of you are aware of a post on President Trump’s social media platform implying that the administration would bring an end to the skin substitute LCD(s) and suggesting that their implementation will lead to more DFU amputations. You can see the post on Jeanne...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 5, 2025 | Fight the Good Fight
There’s a line from Men in Black where Agent K says, “There’s always an Arquillian Battle Cruiser, or a Corillian Death Ray, or an intergalactic plague that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet, and the only way these people can get on...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 3, 2025 | Fight the Good Fight
This Modern Healthcare article from 2/26 is behind a paywall, but I am posting the link anyway. The article reports that earlier in February, a federal judge “partially advanced a potential class action lawsuit against UnitedHealth Group and its UnitedHealthcare...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 28, 2025 | Fight the Good Fight
Migraines are the bane of my life, but I’ve gotten relief from Botox injections to trigger points. This was working fantastically for a year, until suddenly my insurance company decided to deny the prior authorization (PA) request. It took six months to get it...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 26, 2025 | Medicare Audits
Here’s another fantastic post from attorney Knicole Emanuel about the serious overreach problems inside the alphabet soup of Medicare audits. This is an issue that will get even more problematic due to the delay of the “skin substitute” LCD(s). Some auditors are...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 24, 2025 | Cellular / Tissue-Based Products, CTP / Skin Substitute Arrests
Check out Jeanne Pinder’s latest article about skin substitutes on Clear Health Costs! Caroline Fife, M.D.Dr. Fife is a world renowned wound care physician dedicated to improving patient outcomes through quality driven care. Please visit my blog...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 21, 2025 | Pyoderma Gangrenosum
Check out this fantastic review article about pyoderma gangrenosum (PG) by Dr. Alex Loayza and colleagues from the Oregon Health and Science University’s Department of Dermatology. Dr. Loayza has been incredibly generous with his time and expertise when wound care...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 19, 2025 | Fight the Good Fight
Some of you have alerted me to new taxonomy codes that are relevant to the practice of wound care. This seems like huge news to me! I am listing a few of them below, with some explanation of what the components of the code mean. I do not know, for example, if an...
