by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 22, 2022 | Cellular / Tissue-Based Products, Fight the Good Fight, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
I will probably get a lot of unhappy messages about this post, but given the sweeping changes that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed for cellular and/or tissue-based products (CTPs), it might be time to “say the quiet part out loud.”...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 21, 2022 | COVID-19, COVID-19 & HBOT, Fight the Good Fight, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
COVID-19 infection can lead to a wide range of persistent physical, neurocognitive, and neuropsychological symptoms. I have seen a lot of patients (and a few friends) suffer from “long haul COVID,” and personally, the possibility of living with long term cognitive...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 20, 2022 | Don't Miss This, Fight the Good Fight, Lymphatic Imaging & Lymphedema
For many years I was the director of a very large lymphedema clinic at the Texas Medical Center. I worked with 6 fabulous manual lymphatic drainage (MLD) therapists. The therapists and the patients taught me nearly everything I know about lymphedema because for many...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 14, 2022 | Cellular / Tissue-Based Products, Fight the Good Fight, Healthcare Payment Policy
The 2023 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (CMS-1770-P) went on display late afternoon July 7, 2023. The proposed rule involves sweeping changes to the way that cellular and/or tissue based products for skin wounds (CTPs) are paid for in the physician office setting....
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 13, 2022 | Fight the Good Fight
CMS will be convening its open door forum today at 2 pm and address the Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) proposed rule. This is an opportunity to ask questions and hear also others who ask them. There is a lot in the PFS that could impact the delivery of wound care...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jun 24, 2022 | Fight the Good Fight
“Thank you God for letting me be a doctor,” was the inscription that Dr. Floyd Carey picked for his tombstone. If you have been in wound care or hyperbaric medicine for a while, you might know his daughter, Darlene Carey. Darlene sent me a link to her father’s...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jun 22, 2022 | Fight the Good Fight, Lymphatic Imaging & Lymphedema
I have known Cam Ayala since he was about 10. He had primary lymphedema and was one of the many “old beyond their years” children I saw while running a large lymphedema clinic at the University of Texas, Houston in the Texas Medical Center. I’m not betraying a...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jun 20, 2022 | Fight the Good Fight
I have been the clinical editor of Today’s Wound Clinic for more than a decade, and it continues to be the best resource for information about reimbursement, billing and coding relevant to wound management and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. In the past, the Business...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jun 17, 2022 | Fight the Good Fight, Lymphatic Imaging & Lymphedema
This just out in the journal Obesity — an article I co-authored on Lymphatic Function and Anatomy in Early Stages of Lipedema (John C. Rasmussen, Melissa B. Aldrich, Caroline E. Fife, Karen L. Herbst, Eva M. Sevick-Muraca; 15 June 2022). Lipedema is a...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | May 26, 2022 | Fight the Good Fight
My friend Tom Workman just published this article in Today’s Wound Clinic about the use of portable (inflatable) chambers – and it’s a must read. The bottom line is that these chambers are not FDA approved for use with oxygen, and don’t meet the required safety...
