by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 28, 2018 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
This 34 year old patient is a Type 1 diabetic status post kidney pancreas transplant on life-long immunosuppressive medications who now has a neuropathic foot ulcer. That’s dog hair all over the dressing, which the patient argued was nothing to worry about because the...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 24, 2018 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
I call this the “positive Reese’s sign.” Caroline Fife, M.D.Dr. Fife is a world renowned wound care physician dedicated to improving patient outcomes through quality driven care. Please visit my blog at CarolineFifeMD.com and my Youtube channel...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 22, 2018 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
United Healthcare has determined that amniotic tissue products are unproven and will therefore not be reimbursed because of “insufficient clinical evidence of safety and/or efficacy.” As I have mentioned before, the Medicare Advantage plans in my area have been...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 20, 2018 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Lymphatic Imaging & Lymphedema
Of 17 patients with wounds I saw in a single day last week, 11 had lymphedema (64%). They include: 1 with a history of prostate cancer radiation 1 with congestive heart failure and a history of lung cancer 1 with breast cancer lymphedema 1 with scleroderma 3 with...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 17, 2018 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
First, let me say that I have the most amazing wound clinic staff EVER. Second, this Deborah Belasquez, my receptionist, who is so thrilled with her FreeStyle Libre continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) device, she’s showing it to a patient. I’ve blogged about...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 16, 2018 | Don't Miss This, Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
Wounds are a symptom. Our job is to find the disease. Here’s a patient with a non-healing abdominal wound after a ruptured aneurysm. He’s lost the outer third of his eyebrows. Today one of his labs came back very high. What lab was it? If you guessed his...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 15, 2018 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
Make plans to join me at the annual American Professional Wound Care Association clinical conference in Baltimore September 6-8. I’ll be talking about whether wounds are really a chronic disease, a topic that has big implications in the area of healthcare policy, and...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 8, 2018 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
There seems to be a lot of confusion between Patient Reported Outcomes (PRO) and Quality Measures. I see those terms get used interchangeably. A PRO is a measurement of patients’ perception of their own health status or quality of life. A PRO instrument is a...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 8, 2018 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
I got my MIPS score back. I will blog about the details over time, but check out the image below of the “cost per beneficiary measure” which in Year One did NOT contribute to my composite MIPS score, but which was provided for me to review. I am a Family Practice...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 31, 2018 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
Most people don’t realize how much end-of-life counseling that wound care doctors do. It’s not just patients with terminal cancer who have wounds. There are a lot of patients whose wounds are harbingers of death, including extensive calciphylaxis lesions and “Kennedy...
