by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 9, 2023 | Fight the Good Fight
Three Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) CGS, First Coast Service Option (FCSO) and Novitas issued their final Local Coverage Determinations (LCDs) for Cellular and/or tissue-based products (CTPs). These policies will go into effect on September 17. Links to...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 8, 2023 | Fight the Good Fight
Forgive me for “over explaining” this issue, but it needs some over-explanation. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is usually provided in either a hospital-based environment or an office-based environment – otherwise known as “place of service” (POS). Different sites...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 7, 2023 | Fight the Good Fight
Well, it sounded good – the idea that Medicare had removed the requirement that a patient fail 4 weeks of conservative therapy to get a pneumatic compression device (PCD) – referred to in the coverage policy as Intermittent Pneumatic Compression (IPC). But...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 7, 2023 | COVID-19, COVID-19 Diaries, Fight the Good Fight
It’s no secret that clinician burnout is a serious issue, and in a world drastically changed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the rates of burnout have only increased. Dr. Sandra Wainwright, Author of “The COVID Diaries” will make a keynote address that...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 31, 2023 | Fight the Good Fight
Thanks to advocacy from the Alliance of Wound Care Stakeholders, and as a result of the successful case United States District Court, District of Columbia decision in Greenwald v. Becerra (Decided June 7, 2022), the DMEMACs released an updated Local Coverage...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 18, 2023 | Fight the Good Fight
These are screen captures of an ad campaign, “How to become a wound care millionaire with 25 patients or less.” It’s true that CMS did not implement package pricing of “skin subs” in the doctors’ office setting for 2024, but there’s little doubt it will have to...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 12, 2023 | Fight the Good Fight
The Alliance of Wound Care Stakeholders sponsored an updated analysis of the cost chronic wounds among Medicare beneficiaries and the paper, “Chronic Wound Prevalence and the Associated Cost of Treatment in Medicare Beneficiaries: Changes Between 2014 and 2019,” just...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 12, 2023 | Fight the Good Fight
Yes, more evidence that Vitamin D is good for you A study by Arayici and colleagues just released in the journal “Nutrients”* summarizes the pooled analysis of numerous meta-analyses of serum 25(OH)D levels, vitamin D intake and cancer risk. The researchers found that...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 10, 2023 | Fight the Good Fight
This topic is like taking an Ambien in the middle of the day. Don’t read this article. I’m serious – watch some kittens on You Tube or read an article about what foods will make you lose weight. This topic will determine the future of the field of wound care, but like...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jun 26, 2023 | Fight the Good Fight
This is a young woman with Rheumatoid Arthritis. She required a total knee replacement, and the surgical wound just fell apart. Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT) was started, but the foam just fell out of the wound without creating any visible change in the wound...
