by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 28, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, US Wound Registry
Every Tuesday this month we’ve been having some straight talk about a US Wound Registry Quality Measure. I’d like to talk about the measure “Appropriate use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for diabetic foot ulcers”. This was the first HBOT measure the USWR asked CMS to...
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 23, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
They say the ancient Egyptians used honey as a dressing. Interesting that we came back around to it as an industry only to have CMS decide NOT to cover it. Caroline Fife, M.D.Dr. Fife is a world renowned wound care physician dedicated to improving patient outcomes...
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 14, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
Every Tuesday this month we’ve been having some straight talk about a US Wound Registry Quality Measure. In the June/July issue of Today’s Wound Clinic (TWC) I present a case history of a 30 year old man who had been treated for a year at another wound center for a...
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. | Jul 9, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
There are a lot of wonderful cleansers out there but some of my patients can’t afford them. This is the recipe that I give them to make a 0.25% acetic acid solution if they have the classic neon green drainage of Pseudomonas: 3 Tbsp white vinegar in 1 quart distilled...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 7, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
Every Tuesday this month we are going to have some straight talk about Quality Measures. In the June/July 2015 issue of Today’s Wound Clinic (TWC), Darlene Carey has a fantastic article about how she used quality measures to create a wound care program around evidence...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 6, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, Quality Payment Program, US Wound Registry
I don’t know how many of you have actually downloaded any of the USWR electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs) and then gotten them installed into your wound center EHR. Downloading them is easy because the programming is open source and you can use the link below...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jul 2, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
In recognition of the upcoming Independence Day holiday, I’m honoring Dr. James Tilton (June 1, 1745—May 14, 1822) an American physician and soldier from Dover, Delaware. He attended the College of Philadelphia (later the University of Pennsylvania) earning his...
