by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 1, 2024 | Fight the Good Fight, Healthcare Payment Policy
Cost Measures in the Quality Payment Program (QPP) As I have discussed before, CMS thinks that I practice family medicine. Since nearly half the patients with chronic non-healing wounds have heart failure, CMS thinks that I am their primary care doctor (PCP) because I...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 26, 2024 | Fight the Good Fight, Quality Payment Program
The data submission period for Medicare’s Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) 2023 performance year is underway, and closes April 1 at 7 pm CT. At stake is a pay cut of up to 9% in the 2025 payment year. MIPS-eligible physicians and health professionals must...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 25, 2024 | Fight the Good Fight
On Tuesday, January 30th at 12:00 pm ET, the Amputation Prevention Alliance will host a webinar, Preventing Diabetes-Related Amputations: Missed Opportunities in the Patient Care Journey. The Webinar is being released in conjunction with the American Diabetes...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 25, 2024 | Fight the Good Fight, Healthcare Payment Policy
There’s no way to hide the awful fact that I will be 65 in March. I might as well admit it here since apparently, every insurance company and retailer know it – based on the quantity of junk mail that fills my mailbox with “CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR 65TH BIRTHDAY!”...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 24, 2024 | Fight the Good Fight
Recently, I was a guest on the MicroGenDx Mic’d Up podcast, hosted by Rick Martin, CEO of MicroGenDX. We chatted about cases in which MicroGenDx had made a difference in the management of some chronic wound patients – as well as some cases in which the results told me...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 23, 2024 | Cellular / Tissue-Based Products, CTP / Skin Substitutes, Fight the Good Fight
Medicare updates compared to inflation chart (Cumulative) (ama-assn.org) Physicians’ Medicare payments were cut 3.37% on Jan. 1, 2024, on top of a 2% cut that that occurred last year. In total, Medicare physician pay has fallen 26% since 2001 (inflation-adjusted...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 19, 2024 | Cellular / Tissue-Based Products, CTP / Skin Substitutes, Fight the Good Fight
Many thanks to Sharon Hannan, Executive VP of Integumetrix, for her insightful reaction to this article. –Caroline Dr. Fife, As a previous Director of Wound and HBO services at a major hospital system, I can attest to the inaccuracies of hospital financial data...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 18, 2024 | Fight the Good Fight
This is a 72 year old woman who is non-ambulatory and spends the day zooming around in her electric scooter. She lost control of the scooter and rammed her right anterior shin into piece of furniture at a high rate of speed about a week before presenting to the wound...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 12, 2024 | Dr. Helen Gelly, Fight the Good Fight, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
Guest Post by Dr. Helen Gelly A new paper has been published open source in Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine (UHM) about physician supervision of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). You can access the paper ahead of print here: Trends in Physician Supervision of...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 11, 2024 | Fight the Good Fight, Quality Payment Program
The list of all CMS-approved Qualified Clinical Data Registries (QCDRs) has been posted. These QCDRs have been approved by CMS to participate in reporting QCDR measures and/or MIPS (Merit Based Incentive Payment System) quality measures, PI (Promoting...
