Advocacy Areas of Focus
Over the 20 years since its founding, Alliance advocacy protects patient and provider access to wound care products, services and technologies by focusing on coding, coverage and payment issues. The Alliance has tackled a broad range of policy issues and product categories. A snapshot of this advocacy work includes:
Representing a unified wound care voice on policies, regulations & legislation:
- Capitol Hill health care legislation
- Coding issues, including HCPCS coding and CPT issue
- Coverage issues including CMS & CMS contractor policies, local coverage determinations and articles (LCDs/LCAs), national coverage determinations (NCDs
- FDA guidances
- Payment issues including the annual Physician Fee Schedule and Prospective Payment Systems
- Quality measures
- Technology assessments
Defending and protecting a range of product categories, including:
- Antimicrobial dressings
- Cellular and/or Tissue Based Products for Wounds (CTPs)
- Debridement services
- Hyperbaric oxygen therapy
- Negative pressure wound therapy
- Pneumatic compression devices
- Surgical dressings
- Ultrasound therapy
Addressing a range of threats to wound care practice:
- Competitive bidding
- Exclusion of wound care quality measures
- HCPCS coding process
- Lack of transparency
- Prior authorization
- Perceived lack of wound care evidence
- Problematic coverage policies
- Restrictive LCDs
Supporting wound care research:
- “Consensus Principles for Wound Care Research Obtained Using a Delphi Process” (the “POWER” paper, published in 2012)
- “Harnessing Big Data for Wound Healing Research” (2016 ISPOR presentation)
- “An Economic Evaluation of the Impact, Cost, and Medicare Policy Implications of Chronic Nonhealing Wounds” (2017 Value in Health)
