by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 12, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
If you are getting ready for Thanksgiving you might consider putting lobster on the menu. When colonists arrived in the New World, lobsters were almost certainly part of their diet. English settlers reported catching lobsters in nets as early as 1605 and Captain John...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 9, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, Quality Payment Program, US Wound Registry
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) opened the Physician Compare quality measure preview period on October 5th. The 30-day preview period closed on Friday, November 6th. It provided an opportunity for individuals and group practices to review their...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 5, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
Here’s a L’Nard splint to protect heels from pressure ulcers. They’ve been around for decades, but they are still the best way to protect the heel from pressure. Caroline Fife, MD I’ve got a NEW Facebook Page – be sure to follow me there too! Twitter/CarolineFifeMD ...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 2, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
You may remember a previous blog post of mine explaining why even though at first blush, the ICD-10 code cross-walked for the 990 “late effects of radiation” code might not seem to make sense, it really did? I won’t go back through the logic here, but the point is...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Oct 29, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Nutrition & Wound Healing, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
Earlier this month, I showed you some photos of a malnourished patient who I think has improved because of Argenaid. While there may be some things in the past that I miss, I confess that in the past I did not pay sufficient attention to nutritional issues. I’m...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Oct 26, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
On September 28, 2015, CMS made available the 2014 Supplemental Quality and Resource Use Reports (QRURs) to every medical group practice and solo practitioner nationwide. Providers are identified in the Supplemental QRURs by their Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN)....
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Oct 22, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
Today I saw a patient who would have benefitted incredibly from ultrasonic debridement. She has cutaneous calcinosis, terrible pain and her wounds are horribly colonized with nasty drainage like a lava flow. Last year I had an ultrasonic debriding machine on loan for...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Oct 20, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy
I saw a man who had been treated for tonsillar cancer a few years prior. He had recently undergone a biopsy of a lymph node in the left anterior cervical area and had developed an open draining wound on his neck. He had an HMO insurance policy from a major private...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Oct 20, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
How can we get out of this silly problem of trials that don’t enroll our patients to get coverage for patients who really don’t need the product anyway? We need a way to risk stratify wounds that includes patient factors. Thanks to partial funding from a grant by KCI...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Oct 15, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
Today I got an in-service on a new product and my Program Director informed me that since we were moving to a new system for ordering supplies and charging them, it was about to become darn near impossible to get new products. I remember back in the early 1990’s I...
