by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 2, 2021 | Miscellaneous Musings
A lot of hyperbaric medicine physicians got into the field because they loved scuba diving. But, when the pressures of life and work take over, we often stop doing the things we love and then wonder why the joy has gone out of life. I recently met Joe Poe, an...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 21, 2021 | Healthcare Payment Policy
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just released the proposed rule for Calendar Year (CY) 2022 on the Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) and Ambulatory Surgical Centers (APCs). If you are currently working in a hospital-based outpatient...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 20, 2021 | Health Information Technology and Wound Care
Beginning on July 28, HMP Communications and Today’s Wound Clinic will be offering a series of five FREE Wound Clinic Business Webinars in which where Kathy Schaum and Jolayne Devers will share their insights on “2021 Mid-Year Reimbursement Reports.” The free sessions...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 19, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight, Miscellaneous Musings
As a medical student, I remember being counseled by a very wise (and very brilliant) physician mentor about “therapeutic touch.” It might just be a pat on the arm – but he made a point to touch every patient he saw (naturally, in a socially appropriate way) even when...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 16, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight
It happened again. L-arginine made me look foolish. I told the patient’s husband I didn’t think we could get this bone deep pressure injury to close without surgery. I kept doing office debridements, we used negative pressure wound therapy and an anti-biofilm agent....
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 15, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight
68-year-old with ulcers on the left medial ankle, which began after sclerotherapy with some sort of glue 10 weeks earlier. He has had multiple venous ablation procedures for recurrent venous leg ulcers over the past 15 years. I screened him for arterial disease with...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 14, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight
A 78 year old woman presented with a left medial lower leg ulcer that had been present 12 weeks. She said she awoke one the morning with swelling of her left medial leg and some mild redness. She had no confirmed history of trauma. She was not on anticoagulants and...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 13, 2021 | Nutrition & Wound Healing
I am ashamed of how many years it took for me to get serious about the impact of nutritional deficits in chronic wounds, about consistently performing nutritional screening, and about improving patient nutritional status. There are 3 main barriers: Doctors don’t...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 12, 2021 | Nutrition & Wound Healing
I have previously discussed the fact that my electronic health record (EHR) incorporated the Nestle Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) so that it only takes me a few seconds to do a proper nutritional screen and it can be done while I’m in the room with the patient....
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 9, 2021 | Fight the Good Fight
Lately there have been a lot of articles about clinician burnout. There are good reasons. The past 18 months have been tough for everyone. But a few days ago I saw a lovely patient whose wound had returned in an area of previous high-dose radiation. The reason it...
