by Caroline Fife, M.D. | May 29, 2020 | Do the Right Thing: Thoughts on Quality, Fight the Good Fight, US Wound Registry
I recently reviewed the case of an elderly woman with a non-healing wound who had ischemic rest pain and extreme malnutrition, neither of which were addressed by the wound center at which she was treated previously. Not surprisingly she failed to improve with the...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 28, 2020 | Fight the Good Fight, Healthcare Payment Policy, US Wound Registry
The Wound Care Evidence Summit will take place in Washington, D.C. April 1-2. If you are involved in this area, you need to register now because spots are limited. The meeting will convene commercial and government payer medical directors, the FDA, NIH senior staff,...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 24, 2020 | Fight the Good Fight, Healthcare Payment Policy, US Wound Registry
There’s a big focus on finding surrogate measures for wound outcome. I thought I could save anyone working in this area some wasted time by letting you know what outcomes CMS doesn’t care about. I can’t speak to what the FDA might care about. Under the Merit Based...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 5, 2020 | US Wound Registry
The average wound is treated with at least 5 different wound dressing products (which may or may not make sense based on the wound characteristics recorded), and dressings are often layered into a “club sandwich” of competing products that ought to be served with a...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 18, 2019 | Health Information Technology and Wound Care, US Wound Registry
Nearly every week I get a question about the different registry participation options for wound care and hyperbaric medicine. We need all the data we can get in the fields of wound care and hyperbaric medicine. The thought process should not be that one approach is...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Sep 30, 2019 | Healthcare Payment Policy, Quality Payment Program, US Wound Registry
Do you still have the photos of the first patient you treated with the VAC? Here are the 1997 photos of my first VAC patient, only 2 years after the device was cleared by the FDA. I know the photo quality is terrible – they were originally Polaroids! My point is that...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 21, 2019 | Fight the Good Fight, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
The story of my son’s intraoperative pressure injuries In August of 2017, Hurricane Harvey dumped 52 inches of rain on Houston turning the 4th largest city in America into a literal island. However, with our house above water, I was selfishly focused on...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 11, 2019 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, US Wound Registry
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was cursed by the gods to spend eternity rolling a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again. In the March issue of TWC, I talk about my Sisyphean Mondays with heart failure patients, who represent a quarter of my wound care...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 14, 2018 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) spent 6 months reviewing a proposed rule to ease Medicare-participation requirements called, “Regulatory Provisions to Promote Program Efficiency, Transparency and Burden Reduction.” CMS has promised to “reform...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Feb 16, 2018 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, Quality Payment Program, US Wound Registry
Helen Gelly recently blogged about the HCC methodology that CMS uses to create risk adjustments and why it is a really big deal for wound care practitioners. Last year “Minuteman Health,” a Massachusetts based insurance company, filed a lawsuit in federal court...
