by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jun 29, 2017 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care
I have good news. Two months in a row, the U.S. Wound Registry (USWR) and Intellicure, Inc. had ground breaking papers published in Wound Repair and Regeneration, our field’s top journal. The U.S. government had a “big idea” when it passed...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jun 15, 2017 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
In 2011, we published a paper entitled, “Why is it hard to do the right thing in wound care?” in which we documented that only 17% of venous ulcers were treated with adequate compression every time they were seen at a wound center. Those statistics were...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | May 15, 2017 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
You have until March 2018 to submit data. If you are subject to MIPS and do nothing, you will lose 4% of your Medicare Part B payments (although you will not experience this penalty until 2019). Click on the website below and enter your National Provider Identifier...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Mar 15, 2017 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
The New England Journal has this article out about “Online Patient Reviews” that is worth a read. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1610136 I have a negative review on Yelp from a patient who I never even saw, but who is upset with me because I...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 26, 2016 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, Quality Payment Program
An important paper has been released by the U.S. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Registry (HBOTR) detailing its work in Medicare reimbursement issues. “Rapid analysis of hyperbaric oxygen therapy registry data for reimbursement purposes,” a technical paper by Caroline E....
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | May 5, 2016 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
I’m picking up where I’d left off before SAWC Spring – explaining MIPS, the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System. Although MIPS does not begin until 2017, 85% of the MIPS score is derived from performance in the 2 quality programs that clinicians...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Apr 11, 2016 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
Last week I attended the National Quality Forum (NQF) meeting in Washington, D.C. — Re-engineering Quality Data for Value. Due to the high prevalence rate of multiple co-morbidities among patients, there was much discussion about how to properly risk stratify...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Jan 6, 2016 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
2015 is the first year that CMS has distributed Quality and Resource Use Reports (QRURs) to all physicians in the USA. Made available in early September, the QRUR is a confidential report that reflects the quality and cost measure data collected by an eligible...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Dec 21, 2015 | Fight the Good Fight, Health Information Technology and Wound Care, Quality Payment Program
What you need to know to achieve Success with PQRS While some of the background about PQRS is a review of preview posts, I have included the material so that you have all the basic information in one place and can use this as an easy reference about PQRS. I will do...
by Caroline Fife, M.D. | Aug 17, 2015 | Cassandra Chronicles: Regulatory and Coverage Policy, Miscellaneous Musings, Pressure Cooker: Rethinking Pressure Ulcers, US Wound Registry
I’ve previously posted information about the way that Congress got out of the annual “Doc Fix” problem with new legislation that restructures physician payment based on a variety of quality programs. Recently, Medicare trustees have warned that by 2048 physician pay...
