Tag: CLI

Vascular Care Falls Short Before Amputation for CLI: Medicare Analysis

Too few patients underwent angiography or interventions, and suboptimal care was linked with more deaths and readmissions.
Alook back at the care patients with critical limb ischemia (CLI) received in the year prior to amputation suggests that most received minimal vascular care, with 69% not undergoing a revascularization attempt that might have saved the limb or improved overall survival.

Earlier this year, the American Heart Association noted in a policy statement that after a period of decline in the 1990s and early 2000s, major and minor amputations have been on the rise. National surveys, too, reflect a dramatic undertreatment problem in the outpatient setting among patients with PAD … read more

America’s Amputation Crisis May Soon Get Much Worse

Proposed Medicare cuts create greater barriers to screening and revascularization services
Few medical procedures are as life-altering as an amputation. But statistics show hundreds of thousands of Americans have their limbs surgically removed each year because they don’t have access to adequate vascular screening and care.

In the rural communities of North Carolina that we serve, the nearest “in-hospital” alternative to our office-based treatment locations is at least 2 to 3 hours away, which can result in delays in care that lead to poor clinical outcomes. The patients we serve are living with vascular diseases such as peripheral artery disease (PAD) and critical limb ischemia (CLI) … read more