Kathleen Schaum is the president and founder of Kathleen D. Schaum & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm based in Lake Worth, FL that provides strategic reimbursement consultation and education for wound management manufacturers and providers.
Kathleen has guided the reimbursement strategies for more than 100 manufacturers, received Medicare billing codes for over 800 wound care products, applied and received new HCPCS codes/coverage/payment for cellular and/or tissue-based products (CTPs) for skin wounds [old term skin substitutes] and for all forms of collagen dressings. In addition, Kathleen has trained more than 9,000 sales representatives about reimbursement of their products and procedures in various places of service.
Kathleen consults with new and established hospital outpatient wound care departments, physicians, podiatrists, nurse practitioners, wound care nurses, and physical therapists about the "business side of wound management." She does this work because she is passionate about the success of these professionals who she believes are “miracle workers” for patients with chronic ulcers.
To support her own knowledge about the ever-changing reimbursement landscape, Kathleen continually monitors reimbursement legislation and regulations and attends many reimbursement meetings and seminars. She then assimilates that knowledge for her various clients and audiences. Kathleen speaks on the topic of reimbursement at national, regional, and local symposiums and seminars.
Kathleen is celebrating her 26th anniversary of authoring a monthly Payment Strategies column in Advances in Skin & Wound Care. In addition, she authored 2 columns for Today’s Wound Clinic: monthly Business Briefs for 17 years and quarterly Consultation Corner for 7 years. Based on these and other published articles, Kathleen was recently recognized as a world expert for reimbursement health insurance—she is in the top 0.083% of more than 30,000 worldwide authors—she ranks number 25 in the world.