by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 19, 2025 | Fight the Good Fight
Check out Knicole Emanuel’s recent blog post about CMS monetary recoupment before full adjudication. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has the authority to recoup alleged overpayments from healthcare providers before the full adjudication of an...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 18, 2025 | Cellular / Tissue-Based Products, CTP / Skin Substitutes, Medicare Audits
Here’s a guest blog from Martha Kelso, Chief Regulatory Officer at Wound Care Plus, LLC, providing a heads-up about the documentation demands for her most recent audit of CTPs/CAMPs/skin substitutes – this time a UPIC audit. According to the Medicare Program Integrity...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 17, 2025 | Cellular / Tissue-Based Products, CTP / Skin Substitutes
Check out Jeanne Pinder’s newest Clear Health Costs article about the “skin substitute” market. She interviewed practices that have raised serious concerns about skyrocketing wound care spending, including claims of $1 million per patient, with questionable benefit....
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 17, 2025 | Fight the Good Fight
An article in JAMA Dermatology reviews the wound characteristics of a series of 29 patients hospitalized with confirmed xylazine exposure. Xylazine was originally developed as a veterinary sedative, anesthetic, and muscle relaxant. Although xylazine is not an opioid,...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 17, 2025 | Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
The first hint that the email below was from a questionable source was that it started with “Dear my friend.” I received the email below about “mil” [sic] hyperbaric oxygen chambers. This manufacturer is illegally importing inflatable chambers into the USA. Even if...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 14, 2025 | Fight the Good Fight
By now I suppose everyone thinks that I am employed by one of the GLP-1RA marketing firms. I have still not decided exactly where to fit this exciting new drug in the armamentarium of a wound care practitioner, but so far the drugs have potential use in just about...
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...
