by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 22, 2018 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
It’s Year Two. I can’t decide if that conjures up the image of primitive man making the second straight line on the wall of the cave, or Captain Kirk dictating into the ship’s log… probably the latter. It’s the second year of the Quality Payment Program (QPP)...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 17, 2018 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
It’s time for a new acronym. You might not have heard of an organization called MedPAC, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. MedPAC has a lot of influence and no power. Or maybe it’s the other way around. It is an independent US federal body...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 15, 2017 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
It has taken a decade. In 2008 I put together a program called “Pressure Ulcers and the Law” which I patterned after the programs on birth injuries and the law that changed the way cerebral palsy cases were handled. It was demonstrated that most cases of CP happen...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Oct 23, 2017 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
Stopping Data Blocking by EHR Vendors The biggest barrier to participation in the US Wound Registry (USWR) has been data blocking (also called information blocking) by electronic health record (EHR) vendors. Data blocking endangers patients and can prevent physicians...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Oct 20, 2017 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
I’ve been blogging about debridement as it relates to the Novitas Local Coverage Determination (LCD) on Wound care issued in final form just recently. (You can find a pdf version of the LCD here). The Novitas LCD states that debridement services can be continued...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Oct 9, 2017 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
…and how truthful reporting of healing rates could save the field of wound care In 2016, the quality data of all the physicians participating in the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) became publicly available for the first time on the CMS Physician...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Sep 8, 2017 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Nutrition & Wound Healing, Quality Payment Program
What you put IN the patient may be as important as what you put ON them I have been focusing more on nutrition with my patients. Sometimes nutrition is the medicine. This is a wonderful patient over 90 years old who is still driving and mentally alert. He sustained...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Sep 7, 2017 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Nutrition & Wound Healing, Quality Payment Program
What you put IN the patient may be as important as what you put ON them I have been focusing more on nutrition with my patients. It’s so easy to overlook nutritional issues. Recently I saw a fairly young woman who suffered from juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis and...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Sep 5, 2017 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Nutrition & Wound Healing, Quality Payment Program
What you put IN the patient may be as important as what you put ON them I have been focusing more on nutrition with my patients. It is amazing how prevalent nutritional deficits are among patients with non-healing wounds. In late March I saw a woman with severe ulcers...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 22, 2017 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Nutrition & Wound Healing, Quality Payment Program
What you put IN the patient may be as important as what you put ON them I have been focusing more on nutrition with my patients. It’s one of those things we know we are supposed to address, but often we are not quite sure HOW. Susan Horn and I spent months developing...
