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...