Workgroups & 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 advocacy areas of focus is below.
To target the growing range of issues impacting wound care coding, coverage and payment, the Alliance convenes product- and issue-specific Workgroups to enable identification of shared challenges and collaborative solution building. Workgroup participants play a critical role in building unified consensus and shaping Alliance comments to policies. Alliance Workgroups include those focused on:
identify shared challenges & collaborative advocacy Solutions: Workgroups
To target the growing range of issues impacting wound care coding, coverage and payment, the Alliance convenes product- and issue-specific Workgroups to enable identification of shared challenges and collaborative solution building. Workgroup participants play a critical role in building unified consensus and shaping Alliance comments to policies. Alliance Workgroups include those focused on:- Blood-Derived Products (new)
- CTPs
- Emerging Technologies (new)
- Government Affairs
- Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
- Lymphedema (new)
- Negative Pressure Wound Therapy
- Surgical Dressings
Represent a unified wound care voice on Regulatory policies & Legislation:
Advocacy initiatives focus on policies spanning:- 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)
- Payment issues including the annual Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and Outpatient / Inpatient / Home Health Prospective Payment Systems
- Quality measures
- FDA guidances
- AHRQ technology assessments
Defend and protect a broad range of product categories, including:
- Antimicrobial dressings
- Cellular and/or Tissue Based Products for Wounds (CTPs)
- Compression
- Debridement services
- Hyperbaric oxygen therapy
- Negative pressure wound therapy
- Surgical dressings
- Topical oxygen therapy
- Ultrasound therapy
Address current and emerging 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
Support wound care research:
Alliance research and publications include:- “Chronic wound prevalence and the associated cost of treatment in Medicare beneficiaries: changes between 2014 and 2019” (Journal of Medical Economics, 2023)
- “An Economic Evaluation of the Impact, Cost, and Medicare Policy Implications of Chronic Nonhealing Wounds” (Value in Health, 2017)
- “Harnessing Big Data for Wound Healing Research” (2016 ISPOR presentation)
- “Consensus Principles for Wound Care Research Obtained Using a Delphi Process” (the “POWER” paper, published in 2012)
