by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Nov 6, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
Hyperbaric physicians unite! Time to speak out and voice your concerns and educated opinions on the limitations imposed by the First Coast Draft LCD. GuideWell Source is the parent company of First Coast Service Options as well as Novitas Solutions. Between these two...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Sep 28, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
ICD-10 is almost here. In a previous blog I discussed the unique thought logic that would be required to correctly code “late effects of radiation” in ICD-10. Now I am just going to say it—best of luck to those of you who do not have Intellicure. Intellicure is using...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Sep 24, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
I remember about 20 years ago a coder came to talk to me about my wound care documentation. I can’t remember if she was sent from the University or the hospital. I was a relatively young faculty member and the wound center I started at UT Houston had not been open for...
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 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 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...
