FYI - Polaroid photo-documentation

[GinaOT]

We've been using Polaroid instant film as a means to document progress before/during/final results of our lymphedema patients. Yesterday I drove all over town looking for film (10 pack). I was told by the clerks from various stores that they no longer stocked Polaroid Film. I finally found a pack at Walmart. That clerk told me that the price had recently increased $3.00! I paid a little over $15.00 for ten pack! The clerk told me that Walmart will no longer be carrying Polaroid instant camera and supplies due to the fact that digital cameras have made the instant cameras obsolete.

I went back to the office and did a little Googling. I found out that Polaroid recently went bankrupt. Their instant cameras are no longer being made and the film will no longer be available as of August 2009. The price of the available film is already shooting through the roof.

I had been told from the start that Polaroid instant film was the required means of photo-documenting patient progress. I was relieved to find out from a Medicare representative this morning that Medicare no longer requires instant film for documentation purposes. I was also informed that images made from digital cameras is acceptable - just make a print-out. That's a bit of good news because I never cared for the quality results from the Polaroid instant camera.

I will need to find the manual to my digital camera and figure out how to initiate the time stamp function.

-df

[rts]

I just stumbled across this, and being a photographer as well as having primary lymphedema, I just had to respond.

Digital will do just fine. Depending on how you archive your images, the information concerning camera settings,date taken and the like will be a part of the image. Always save an unedited copy of the file. It should have all of that stuff within it!

You may also want to check the section in the manual about white balance. This will affect color of the image, which would be important!

[LymphActivist]

Although photographs, instant or digital, are nice, they do not measure the results of lymphedema treatment in an objective way to show progress of the therapy except in gross terms. Ask your therapist to teach you or an aide or partner how to take circumferential measurements and use these to measure progress.

These measurements are necessary to show that the therapy is still resulting in improvement to qualify for additional treatments over and above the limit, and to validate that the compression garments, self-bandaging, self MLD and exercises are maintaining your dimensions and are therefore medically necessary.

Medical reviews associated with insurance demand these kinds of records.

LymphActivist