The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the healthcare system as a whole and brought attention to remote wound management. Providers and patients alike see the benefits of providing care via telehealth.
February is Heart Month, a time to spotlight the importance of cardiovascular health, which is why we’re making our best argument for utilizing ABI’s in your wound care program. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S., killing about 1 in 4 people each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Related complications like vascular insufficiency or peripheral artery disease can result in the development of painful non-healing wounds that can develop into an infection or sepsis, putting patients at risk of lower limb amputation.
COVID, like any crisis, magnified our weaknesses and solidified our strengths. We quickly saw what was going to last at our organization: a solid customer service department, long standing relationships with key clients, and clinical employees that would go above and beyond for our patients, just to name a few.
The success of an outpatient wound care program is determined by its ability to strategically manage clinical, financial, and operational outcomes. If you feel your program is not meeting its full potential, the vital first step is to identify the symptoms. Only then can you begin treating the underlying disease and ultimately heal your wound and hyperbaric program. Below, we’ve listed a few of the most common issues struggling programs are facing and the initial steps you can take to resolve them.
Providers of specialized wound care and hyperbaric medicine are adapting to the challenges presented by the COVID-19 crisis. COO Rylan Smith answers common questions from wound care providers looking to successfully navigate the pandemic and move forward.
Layne Hazel (second from right) is the program director for the wound care and hyperbaric medicine program at Clark Regional Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky.
Pete Schellenbach, VP of IT/Systems Integration, outlines the options and talks about the pros and cons of web-hosted telemedicine services for wound care service providers.
Wound care remains an essential service that prevents hospital admissions and ER visits among a fragile group of patients at high risk of COVID-19. We've created a video series to help our wound care industry colleagues adapt and respond.
Back in 2011, our CEO Mike Comer wrote a blog post about whether to rent or buy a hyperbaric chamber for an outpatient wound care program, and that post continues to generate interest to this day. Since that time, our industry has experienced many changes, but the interest and need for hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is still very much alive.
In the final rule released in 2018 for 2019, CMS decided to reduce the E&M Level reimbursement for all off-campus departments of the hospital, including exempted centers. This reduction only affects CPT code G0463. If you have an off-campus provider-based department of the hospital, you will now be reimbursed 70% of the OPPS rate for 2019 with further reduction down to 40% in 2020.
A large part of the work my team does at WCA involves dashboarding, reporting, and benchmarking. We’ve gained a great deal of experience and insight on how to interpret and present the large amount of data we receive each day to better inform our clinical and business decisions...
