Inaugurating our first fund-raising drive

We are nearing the end of the year, but not slowing down! Several more educational activities remain on our calender for 2010 (just take a look at the meeting schedule, below)! The biggest event of all takes place in just 2 weeks: the International Conference on Biotherapy (ICB), to be held in the US (Los Angeles) for the first time in its 14-year history.

But today I asked readers of our newsletter (The BeTER LeTTER) for assistance. "If you are planning to contribute to the BTER Foundation this year," I wrote, "NOW is the time to do it. We really need your support in our drive to raise $20,000 to pay our faculty's travel costs."

The BTER Foundation is bringing the leading clinicians and researchers from around the globe to share their knowledge and experience with us all. THIS is the way the BTER Foundation fulfills its mission to improve the QUALITY and AVAILABILITY of healthcare. The faculty has volunteered their services and time; we will pay their travel costs.

Never before have I used our newsletter to ask for donations; and I hope never to need to do it again. But our efforts to date to raise money through grants and sponsorship have fallen short. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Conference Grant that we worked so hard to get did not materialize. In fact, our application was rejected without review because "it was outside the mission of AHRQ" (AHRQ is part of the US Department of Health and Human Services). No one from AHRQ returned our telephone or e-mail messages, so we still do not know why our conference was "outside the the mission" of their Small Conference Grants program. But we do know that this will not stop us from moving ahead with the conference. We also know that raising the needed funds through very high registration fees is the wrong way to go, because it will prevent many people from attending. We want to increase biotherapy education, not inhibit it; our educational programs must remain affordable.

So with this month's newsletter, I inaugurated our first fund-raising drive ever: to raise $20,000 to cover the ICB faculty travel costs.

And now, what about you?

If you are in the fortunate position to have something to give this year, and if you plan to contribute to the BTER Foundation, please do it now. Donations can be mailed to the Foundation (address at the end of this newsletter) or submitted by credit card on-line.

Wishing you a great Thanksgiving Holiday, and many reasons to be thankful. Today, I am thankful for you and all our readers and supporters.

Preparing for the 8th International Conference on Biotherapy
The past few months have been quite busy for those in the Biotherapy world: preparing for the 8th International Conference on Biotherapy. "We had planned to stop accepting abstracts for the conference by now," said a spokesman for the Conference, ". . . but abstracts are continuing to roll in, and we are reluctant to terminate the flow of papers and ideas." So, the Organizing Committee announced this week that the deadline for submitting abstracts for the Conference has been extended until August 31.

The Conference Organizers don't want anyone with something to share to be left out.

You shouldn't be left out, either! Register for ICB-2010, and reserve your room at the Hollywood - Universal Hilton now, before the discounted rooms are all sold.

Read more about the Conference in the BTER Foundation's newsletter (THE BeTER LeTTER), or check out the Conference website: www.bterfoundation.org/icb/icb2010.htm.

I can't believe it's been over a year since my last entry! Plenty has transpired, but I have had (I have made) no time to write about it. I will try to do better.

The biggest news right now is that the BTER Foundation has a new web design. This has been a project in the planning for nearly a year, because the vast number of resources grew beyond the ability of the earlier site structure to organize and retrieve them. Take a look at the new www.BTERFoundation.org. Leave a message as to how well the site serves you, or how it could be improved.

Better yet, leave a note as to how YOU can help the website grow, or how YOU can help the BTER Foundation help others.

Also, you can read about some of the other developments this past year in Biotherapy in the BTER Foundation newsletters.

Maggots Finally Get Some Respect

At the risk of appearing conceited, let me devote today’s report to two instances where biotherapy was awarded some respect by the society in general, and the medical community in particular.

Maggot therapy began its current revival in the United States in the early 1990’s. In the United Kingdom, this occurred about 5 years later. There are many proponents of maggot therapy in the UK, and many people who deserve credit for creating the laboratories and clinics where it all started. Since those early days, Mary Jones devoted her time to spreading the word, and the skills, through her efforts teaching other health care providers to treat patients with maggot dressings. Earlier this year, her Maggot Therapy work was formally recognized by the Queen of England. Mary Jones was awarded an MBE in the Queen's New Year Honors for her services to nursing. Read more about it at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7163148.stm

This past June, the Director of the BioTherapeutics, Education & Research (BTER) Foundation, Ronald Sherman (yes, that’s me), was recognized by the editors of Medical Device and Diagnostics Industry as one of the “100 Notable People” in the medical device industry for 2008. This tribute was published in the June, 2008 issue of the trade journal.

Among Dr. Sherman’s contributions listed in this cover story are his clinical trials of medicinal maggots for wound-healing, and his success in securing FDA marketing clearance for those maggots --- the first live animal to achieve such a status in FDA history.

Ronald Sherman began his interest in maggot therapy as an Entomology undergraduate, and wrote his first paper with Plastic Surgeon Ed Pechter while in medical school (published 1983). By 1989 he had the opportunity to design and conduct his first prospective clinical trials of maggot therapy. With funding by the Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA), California PVA, and the Andrus Foundation (American Association of Retired Persons), he spent the next 5 years evaluating the safety and efficacy of the flies that he captured in Southern California. Sherman modernized methods for disinfecting them and applying them to wounds. He has supplied nearly 1,000 therapists in the United States with medicinal maggots for use in their patients, and he has assisted others worldwide in setting up their own maggot-rearing laboratories (today more than 25 laboratories supply medicinal maggots to patients in 35 countries). In 2003, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began regulating medicinal maggots. In January, 2004, Sherman’s Medical Maggots became the first living organism to receive marketing clearance by the FDA as a prescription medical device. found a safe and effective strain, which has been maintained with genetic purity until this day.

These two commendations are a landmark in biotherapy history, for they indicate that maggot therapy and those who promote it are now welcome back into the mainstream. Indeed, at least in Britain, they are even welcome in high society. Congratulations to Mary Jones and Ron Sherman. Congratulations to British and American Society, for making it back to the future of medicine.

Letter from Massachusetts, requesting HCPCS code for medicinal maggots

Another letter to CMS, requesting reimbursement coding for maggot therapy and medicinal maggots -

Medicaid HCPCS Coordinator
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Mail Stop S2-01-16
7500 Security Boulevard
Baltimore, MD 21244-1850

Dear Medicaid HCPCS Coordinator:

I am a Registered Nurse who has worked in wound care facilities for 10 years. I have tried to obtain maggot therapy for many of my patients who failed IV antibiotics and conventional debridements, but because there is no assigned HCPCS code for this product and therefore no reimbursement available, this therapy has been unobtainable for clients who would benefit from treatment.

This lack of availability has led to higher cost for inpatient surgical debridements and greater length of stay in hospitals.

I feel that maggot therapy would be a lower cost choice and should be available for use and reimbursement to these clients who need this particular therapy.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Nurse F, Massachusetts

In an addendum, she added:

I have tried to obtain maggot therapy for many of my patients who failed IV antibiotics and conventional debridements, but because there is no assigned HCPCS code for this product . . . this therapy has been unobtainable . . . . because we could not be reimbursed for them, it was stopped . . . . This . . . has led to higher cost for inpatient surgical debridements and greater length of stay in hospitals.

Letter to CMS from Michigan

We received many letters to present to CMS, explaining why reimbursement coding for maggot therapy is so important. I will post a few over the next several days. They speak for themselves, for the authors, and for the biotherapy community at large.

Dear Sirs:

While I can not be physically present at your meeting, I would like to comment via this email on Medicare coverage of medical maggot therapy. I treat diabetic ulcers on a daily basis in my podiatric medical practice. It is heartbreaking to see the loss of limbs and lifestyle changes my patients must undergo. Personally I have treated some of the worst of these patients with medical maggots and gotten very gratifying results. Unfortunately, this therapy is not covered by their insurance and the patient must bear this financial burden. The people that find themselves in this position are usually the least able to afford it. This means they are denied a treatment that could potentially save their limb. I have seen both sides of this: the saved limb by maggots and the lost limb because the patient could not afford the maggots. It is imperative that Medicare develop a code for medical maggot therapy.

Sincerely,
Dr. D, Michigan

Why blog about Maggot Therapy and BioTherapy?

I never thought that I would be blogging, but today I was moved to set up this site about maggot therapy, leech therapy, and other forms of biotherapy. Why? Because I encountered another obstacle to health care. And I am frustrated.

For the past 25 years I have studied and shared the health benefits of maggot debridement (fly larvae that remove all of the dead or gangrenous tissue from a wound without harming the healthy tissue). We made it past the ethics committees, and through the years of minimal research funding. We taught therapists how to use the maggots, despite having to work outside of the conventional Medical School curriculum. In 2002, the FDA was called in to regulate our work, and by 2004 we came out of the experience with marketing clearance!

You would think (or at least I thought) that with FDA marketing clearance any doctor could now prescribe maggot therapy. Legally, they can. But in practice, many do not. Why not? There are many factors, but one of the most common is the difficulty in getting paid for it (reimbursement). Wayman and his group (2000) demonstrated a cost savings by using maggot therapy for venous stasis ulcers. But when insurance companies do not pay for maggot therapy then the health care practitioners and institutions (or the patients themselves) have to pick up the costs themselves. From their perspective, maggot therapy is not a cost savings.

It is a shame when our health care system pays thousands of dollars for an amputation but not $100 for maggots, which reportedly saved limbs in 50% of the cases where it was tried (Sherman, 2002).

The reason that it can be difficult to get reimbursement for maggot therapy --- sometimes requiring the doctors or patients to appeal an initial rejection letter several times --- is that there is no specific procedure ("CPT") code for the procedure of maggot therapy, nor a product ("HCPCS") code for the maggots. Just about every medical procedure, from drawing blood to transplanting hearts, is designated with a CPT code which can be listed on Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance forms. Just about every medical product, from empty syringes to ventilators, has a designated HCPCS code, which can be listed on the insurance forms so that the patient or health care provider can be reimbursed.

But in 2004, the American Medical Association (AMA) Committee for CPT Coding declined to issue a specific CPT code for maggot therapy, stating that reimbursement should come from a HCPCS code for the maggots. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issues HCPCS codes. Then the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services declined to issue a HCPCS code for the maggots, stating that reimbursement for maggot therapy should come from billing for the procedure with a CPT code.

Today, the same volleying is playing out all over again: AMA says that CMS should provide a billing code, and CMS says that AMA should provide the billing code. Meanwhile, there is no billing code and patients and their care providers are forced to battle their insurance providers to get fair reimbursement for a safe, effective and appropriate (albeit unconventional) therapy.

That is what prompted me to begin writing about the contemporary issues (research, accomplishments, opportunities, and, yes, battles) concerning biotherapy.

I will have to continue this story tomorrow . . . .