by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 18, 2019 | Healthcare Payment Policy, Quality Payment Program
We have a serious problem with mistaken identity as wound care practitioners, and I don’t know what we are doing to do about it. I’ve told you that Medicare is holding me accountable for all the wound center patients with CHF and diabetes that get re-hospitalized each...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 15, 2019 | Healthcare Payment Policy
I don’t want to sound like a doomsday lunatic, since there are enough of those running for President. Besides, I’m not qualified to run for President since I can do simple MATH. I’ve pointed out that in 2016, I looked at my “Quality and Resource Use Report” (QRUR) and...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 14, 2019 | Miscellaneous Musings
Happy Valentine’s Day to my Wonderful Nurses – I appreciate your clinical expertise, your hard work, your teamwork and your cheerfulness! Caroline Fife, M.D.Dr. Fife is a world renowned wound care physician dedicated to improving patient outcomes...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 12, 2019 | Healthcare Payment Policy
There’s a contradiction in the field of wound care that we have got to come to terms with. The annual cost of caring for the 15% of Medicare beneficiaries with chronic wounds is at least $28 Billion per year, but it might be as high as $96 Billion per year, and most...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 11, 2019 | Don't Miss This, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers
I recently saw a patient with digital ischemia who got improvement in both pain and tissue viability with transdermal oxygen from the OxyBand dressing. There are a lot of possible reasons for digital ischemia, so it’s important to know why the patient has ischemic...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 8, 2019 | Don't Miss This, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers
In 2016, The National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP) changed their staging system. I am not talking about changing the term “ulcer” to “injury.” I am talking about changing the definitions of stages 2, 3 and 4. This is a big deal, and...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 4, 2019 | Healthcare Payment Policy
Special Guest Blogger- Helen Gelly, MD Since 2014, when CMS started the process of implementing the Prior Authorization of Non-Emergent Hyperbaric Oxygen, hyperbaric therapy has been firmly between the crosshairs of CMS. Important Message from UHMS Executive Director...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 31, 2019 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
I handled a situation with a patient poorly a few months ago, and it shook me up so much I asked Jay Shah to write an article about the subject for Today’s Wound Clinic. I’d love some feedback about the topic, either through my blog or TWC. Here’s what happened. I...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 28, 2019 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers
Since the pressure ulcer staging system is based on the tissue you can visualize, we get caught up in a bizarre logic. It ought to be possible to describe the steps a wound goes through to get to a stage 4 pressure ulcer. But you can’t, because an ulcer doesn’t become...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 15, 2019 | Cellular / Tissue-Based Products, Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
Since clinicians were first offered a financial incentive to purchase and use an electronic health record (EHR) to obtain bonus money (or avoid penalties), they have been required to use only “certified EHR technology” (CEHRT). The names of the various payment...
