About Dr. Fife
Dr. Fife is a world-renowned wound care physician. She is the Director of the Wound Care Center at CHI St. Luke’s The Woodlands Hospital, CMO of Intellicure, Inc., Exec. Director of the US Wound Registry & Editor of Today’s Wound Clinic.
Report Honest Healing Rates
It’s time for Wound Care physicians and providers to stand up for truly honest outcomes and transparent quality reporting. If we don’t we may see our entire profession wiped out. Click here to read more.
Resource Room
Explore Dr. Fife’s ever-growing library of helpful content related to Wound Care and MIPS. From videos to instructional materials, this knowledge base is completely yours to enjoy and use.
Latest Posts
Breaking News on Site Neutrality
Evidence has been accumulating for years that site neutrality is coming. I don’t think it is an issue of whether but when. This executive order might bring it a bit closer, but doesn’t implement it.
Cellular Couture for the Wound Fashionista
I like to think of CTPs as couture clothing. Does one of them make me look SMALLER?
How NPWT Changed Wound Care and Why We Need to Think Like Oncologists
Without using the Wound Healing Index to justify the need for advanced therapeutics like NPWT, the future of wound care could look like it did in the early 1990s: dressing the wound and praying for patients to heal.
The “Art” of Wound Care
I recently spoke at a conference where an artist depicted each speaker’s presentation visually. This is how he interpreted my rapid fire, “Current state of wound care in 15 minutes.”
He flexed his arms across his chest, eyes deviated to the right, and had a generalized seizure.” Other than that, what can go wrong with hyperbaric oxygen therapy?
Have you ever seen an oxygen toxicity seizure?
Wound Diaries, Club Sandwich Dressings and What That Means to the Future of Wound Management
For more than 10 years, we’ve had a way to select dressings more consistently and appropriately, but no one has wanted to use it.
Pondering DNA Assay of Wounds: It only Matters When it Matters
I have been using DNA assay of wounds for a decade, but am still trying to figure out how best to employ this technology. Here’s an example of why it is needed at times: This is a frail lady who is devoted to her dogs. Her wound had been making progress at...
Decreasing the Disadvantages of Medicare Advantage Plans When Patients Need a Cellular Product
An increasing percentage of my wound center patients have Medicare Advantage plans offered by private payers. As I’ve discussed on previous blogs, it’s getting very hard to use cellular and/or tissue-based products (CTPs) on chronic wound patients with...
Pizza University – Explaining Wound Management to Patients
Welcome to Pizza University for wound care! Check out the video below, and find out why we need to get rid of the cheese and hold the pesto:
Pyoderma Gangrenosum (PG): Not So Rare, and When in Doubt, Take a History.
Pyoderma Gangrenosum (PG) is one of the most painful wounds we see each year. It is called a “rare” disorder with an estimated incidence of 3 to 10 cases per million people per year.(1) That would mean there are about 20 new cases of PG in Houston, Texas each year....
My Staff Inspire Me (and a Wound Center Staff Photo Caption Contest)
Here’s my amazing staff and the CHI St. Luke’s Quarterly Mission and Annual Inspire Award event, honoring nominees and winners for The Woodlands' Campus. Our Wound Clinic team at CHI SLEH The Woodlands was nominated for “Team of the Year,” and our Program...
The Best Part About the Labor Day Holiday is Not Having to Fight the Traffic Driving to Work
If you are like me, the fun part about the Labor Day holiday is that there’s no traffic on Monday when you drive to work…
Real World Evidence for Real World Wounds
I am just going to say it. The majority of prospective trials in wound healing have enrolled subjects whose wounds were more likely to heal than not. While more “generalizable” trials (meaning, actually relevant to real patients) are underway or in the planning...
The Undaunted Spirit Award
Here’s a photo of a gorgeous Texas quilt, hand crafted by an octogenarian wound center patient (she’s getting her dressing changed).
The Undaunted Spirit Award
This cane makes me think of the Johnny Cash song, “I’ve been everywhere.”
Yes! It IS a Pressure Injury! An Ischemia Reperfusion Injury…
The story of my son’s intraoperative pressure injuries.
The Undaunted Spirit Award
Here’s a nifty way to keep track of your phone and your pen if you are in a wheelchair.
The Undaunted Spirit Award
Patients inspire me every day. This lady in her 9th decade showed me a picture on her smart phone (which alone is an accomplishment). She’s at church playing the accordion and the piano at the same time. I’ll add her to my gallery of patients with “undaunted spirit.”...
Guest Post by Dr. Helen Gelly: Noridian starts post payment Medical review of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy- is HBOT what the doctor ordered?
Noridian has started sending out letters to notify hospitals of post-payment review of outpatient HBOT charged records from 2018 (G0277). See below for the pitfalls of writing the usual HBOT note. If you do not order the HBOT for that day, you will likely not get...
Pondering the Economic Model of Anti-Biofilm Agents
Would your patients pay $200 a tube for a product like this?
Guest Blog by Helen Gelly, MD – What is a Hierarchical Condition (HCC) Score and why should you CARE?
What’s your HCC?
Nutrition and the Space Race
Fifty years ago I stayed up late with my grandfather to watch the Apollo 11 astronauts land on the moon. We sat riveted, watching grainy images on a tiny black and white television set, marveling at how far technology had advanced. In the 1960s, my father was an...
The Uphill path to Value Based Nutritional Assessment and Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
This month in TWC, learn about the history of total parenteral nutrition and how the Space Race of the 1960’s helped patients with malabsorption. I explain why QCDR quality measures have been a disappointment for all specialties, why Practice Improvement Activities...
Counting the Cost – and a Roadmap to Survival (Part 7 of 7)
I started this series of blogs with a discussion of Medicare audits and the impending bankruptcy of Medicare. We determined that audits come from perceived improper use and the reason that audits are accelerating is the impending bankruptcy of Medicare. Medicare is...
Counting the Cost – and a Roadmap to Survival (Part 6 of 7)
Every practitioner is being positioned on a grid in relation to the cost of care as described, and their quality score which is usually a score obtained from MIPS quality reporting. The ideal position on the grid is the top right corner. To CMS, that person delivers...
Counting the Cost – and a Roadmap to Survival (Part 5 of 7)
Why do my patients cost so much? I showed you the numbers in my MIPS “cost” category which concluded that I spend $58,000 per episode rather than $16,000, which is the average for a family practice doctor. Remember that these costs are being triggered by...
Counting the Cost – and a Roadmap to Survival (Part 4 of 7)
The table below is from one of my Quality and Resource Use Reports (QRUR). You can see the “ambulatory care-sensitive conditions include the conditions I mentioned on my last blog: bacterial pneumonia, urinary tract infection, dehydration, diabetes complications,...
