by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 25, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
Last week I spent a lot of time trying to explain the ICD-10 code for “late effects of radiation” and why it was “right” even thought it seems wrong because it is in “injury and poisoning” code. That gets me to the straight talk topic of “who decides what the right...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 24, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
In July, CMS announced a proposed new model of funding for home healthcare that will affect the delivery of wound care provided by home nursing. The model, included in the CY 2016 Home Health Prospective Payment System proposed rule, updates payments and requirements...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 18, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
Last week I mentioned ICD-10 so I thought it might be interesting to discuss why using the right “words” in the chart, to get a coder to code correctly for HBOT, is going to be very tricky. I’m going to try to explain this for “late effects of radiation” but it IS...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 11, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
ICD-10 has completely consumed my time in the past few weeks. Let’s talk straight about how this is going to work for wound care and hyperbaric medicine. There are 2 fundamental ways coding has ALWAYS worked, even with ICD-9. Option #1: The doctor knows the codes...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 27, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
Last month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services made public more hospital and physician billing data. The 2013 data covers about 950,000 providers who received $90 billion in Medicare payments. Medicare’s highest physician payments went to hematologists and...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 19, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, Quality Payment Program, US Wound Registry
More and more of my patients are on Medicare “advantage” plans. Just this week I asked one of them why she decided to take a Medicare replacement plan rather than a traditional Medicare plan. I was pretty sure I knew the answer because my husband got Medicare this...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 13, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
Last week I asked how things were going with getting eCQMs into your EHR. You need to do this to avoid negative payment adjustments but also because your performance on quality measures may very likely be the way that payers decide WHETHER they will send patients to...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jun 24, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
Welcome to “what is it Wednesdays” in June. What is wrong with the abdominal pannus of this morbidly obese patient? He’s actually got venous stasis of the pannus with secondary lymphedema. Note the fibromas. How are we going to handle the epidemic of morbid obesity in...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jun 23, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
Tuesdays in the month of June, I’m offering some straight talk about a few of the MANY ways in which payment for hyperbaric oxygen therapy is going to change and FAST. Another issue is that of decreased payment of Physician Supervision for HBOT. The American Medical...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jun 16, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
Tuesdays in the month of June, I’m offering some straight talk about a few of the MANY ways in which payment for hyperbaric oxygen therapy is going to change and FAST. A huge change are new limits on Coverage for HBOT by Private Payers. Capital Blue Cross, Milliman...
