by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Apr 20, 2016 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
Like many hyperbaric medicine doctors, I got into the field through my love of diving. Many years ago I was lecturing at one of the beautiful diving medicine courses offered by Paul Sheffield (ATMO) and the late Helen Davis. The main attraction at the meeting was the...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Apr 11, 2016 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
Last week I attended the National Quality Forum (NQF) meeting in Washington, D.C. — Re-engineering Quality Data for Value. Due to the high prevalence rate of multiple co-morbidities among patients, there was much discussion about how to properly risk stratify...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 24, 2016 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
Each performance year, CMS sets a “performance threshold” (PT) which is the number of points at which a provider receives 0% adjustment to their Medicare Part B payments. If, just for the sake of illustration, the PT threshold is 50 points, then a provider earning 50...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 17, 2016 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
For over a decade we had an annual crisis of uncertainty regarding Medicare physician payments. Under the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula, physician reimbursement needed to be cut by at least 21% to keep the Medicare program from going under financially....
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 3, 2016 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
Two months ago (Jan 2016), Diabetes Care published an article by Fedorko and colleagues entitled, “Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Does Not Reduce Indications for Amputation in Patients With Diabetes With Non healing Ulcers of the Lower Limb: A Prospective, Double-Blind,...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 17, 2016 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
I’ve created a guide to help Wound Care Practitioners successfully pass MU2 Objective 10. Here’s a quick bulleted summary of the document: The History of Meaningful Use Accomplishing Meaningful Use Objectives The 4 big picture changes that occurred in the...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 17, 2016 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
We have less than two weeks in the deadline for Registry Reporting deadlines for 2016 Meaningful Use Stage 2 Objective 10 (February 29, 2016). But let’s not forget the preparation required in order to successfully pass Quality Reporting for PQRS. Below is a...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 14, 2016 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
With deadlines fast approaching for so many quality programs and so much at stake, I’m not doing a “What is it?” today. Today I am going to review some of the PQRS measures I selected and provide reasons why I think they are important and you might want to consider...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 13, 2016 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
This year, Medicare begins to financially penalize clinicians who fail to succeed with quality programs. We are all in this together! The two critical programs are the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) and the Meaningful Use (MU) of an Electronic Health Record...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 6, 2016 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
2015 is the first year that CMS has distributed Quality and Resource Use Reports (QRURs) to all physicians in the USA. Made available in early September, the QRUR is a confidential report that reflects the quality and cost measure data collected by an eligible...
