by Caroline Fife, M.D. | May 12, 2026 | Fight the Good Fight
Dr. Fife, Thank you for the wonderful blog post by Drs. Melin and team: “Wrestling Armadillos”. I could not agree more on all points! I want to emphasize this statement: “…’the underlying reason for chronic wounds may be systemic’, a...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | May 1, 2026 | Fight the Good Fight
The disconnect between the subjects enrolled in prospective clinical trials and patients in the real world has been an issue of concern for years. Dr. Marissa Carter and I first published on this in 2009 Advances in Skin & Wound Care. To over-simplify the problem...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Apr 24, 2026 | Fight the Good Fight
One of the things that makes wound care fascinating is that just when you think you have seen it all – you haven’t. I have only seen one case of leprosy in my 35+ career. Even though it is rare, we do see cases of leprosy in the southern US. And, growing up in Texas,...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Apr 17, 2026 | Fight the Good Fight, Healthcare Payment Policy
If you prescribe medications electronically through your electronic health record (EHR), you have almost certainly encountered a “formulary alert” from a patient’s pharmacy benefit plan warning you that you must select a “lower tier” drug before the drug you are...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Apr 15, 2026 | Fight the Good Fight, Healthcare Payment Policy, Tales of the Medicare Disadvantaged
Despite the hope that Medicare Advantage (MA) plans would offer valuable supplemental benefits (including dental, vision and hearing benefits), recent studies do not show that MA beneficiaries are getting more supplemental services than those enrolled in traditional...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Apr 1, 2026 | Fight the Good Fight, Healthcare Payment Policy
The 2026 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) included a one-year, 2.5% positive update for 2026 Medicare payment. It was better than nothing, but still does not come close to adjusting for inflation. (Physician payments are among the few sectors of medicine that do...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 30, 2026 | Fight the Good Fight, Healthcare Payment Policy
I have blogged a lot about the boring topic of Medicare’s contract with Acumen to develop a cost measure for “non-pressure” ulcers (which means diabetic foot ulcers, venous leg ulcers, arterial ulcers, and “generic” chronic ulcers – surgical wounds and traumatic...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 17, 2026 | Fight the Good Fight, Medicare Audits
The final MIPS reporting deadline for the 2025 performance year is March 31, 2026. In other words, you have until the last day of March to report MIPS data – that is, if you are required to report. The purpose of this article is to explain the unnecessarily...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 12, 2026 | Fight the Good Fight
The New World screwworm (NWS) is endemic in the American tropics and subtropics which includes the countries of South America, Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. However, Central America and Mexico are experiencing an outbreak of NWS with cases in both animals...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 9, 2026 | Fight the Good Fight, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers
In 2006, the National Qualify Forum (NQF) issued a list of 28 Serious Reportable Events (SREs). Fifteen years earlier, I had initiated a major academic wound center and had spent those years trying (and failing) to prevent pressure ulcers in 6 intensive care units...
