The cutaneous surgery experience of multiple specialties in the Medicare population

Safety of Staged Interpolation Flaps After Mohs Micrographic Surgery in an Outpatient Setting: A Single-Center Experience

“…Dermatologists perform more skin surgeries than any other specialty . In an analysis of 2008 Medicare claims data, dermatologists treated 82% of all skin cancers, with 96.4% of these cases being treated in the office setting .…”

Quantifying and Characterizing Adverse Events in Dermatologic Surgery

“…Finally, postoperative AEs were defined at study initiation, so potential AEs that were not defined in the categorization scheme such as partial‐thickness flap or graft necrosis may not have been captured. Various approaches that have been recommended to improve patient safety in dermatologic surgery, such as requiring credentialing of physicians or performing procedures in an ambulatory surgery center, would be detrimental to the provision of patient care and might result in a higher AE rate and significantly higher cost with no evidence of better outcomes . In light of the low AE rate in office‐based dermatologic procedures presented here, the utility and cost‐effectiveness of these approaches should be closely examined.…”

“…D ermatologists perform a large and increasing number of outpatient surgical procedures. 1,2 Dermatologic surgery is generally considered safe; the complication rate after Mohs micrographic surgery was 1.6% in one prospective study. 3 In Florida, where reporting of office-based surgical complications is mandatory, no deaths and four hospital transfers were reported after dermatologic procedures over 10 years.…”

Every cell has its niche: Harnessing microtopography to control keratinocyte fate

“…The treatment of chronic wounds presents a challenging and expensive clinical problem, with the annual cost of treatment exceeding $8 billion USD. One method of treatment for chronic non-healing wounds is skin grafting; between 1998 and 1999 approximately 163,000 grafting procedures were performed on Medicare patients [2]. While the current gold standard is a split-thickness autograft, donor site morbidity and limited tissue availability present significant limitations [3].…”