For Wound Care Specialists in San Bernardino, CA

How San Bernardino is not Florida First Coast

Adult arthritis here is 21.2% (CDC PLACES 2023, crude). That is the joint-pain backdrop for PRP and orthobiologics — not a promise that every arthritic knee is a candidate. CDC PLACES (2023, crude) estimates 13.6% of adults in San Bernardino have diagnosed diabetes — 1.6 points above the U.S. 12% figure. Together those PLACES numbers are why a city under 250k still needs separate PRP and CTP protocols. wound care specialists inventory is national; utilization is JE-local.

Epidemiology is not a protocol

• CDC PLACES (2023, crude) estimates 13.6% of adults in San Bernardino have diagnosed diabetes — 1.6 points above the U.S. 12% figure. Adult obesity in San Bernardino is 37.1% (CDC PLACES 2023). That shows up in wound offloading and in joint-preservation volume — not as a slogan. A CTP without offloading and serial measurements still fails JE review. Product is the last step, not the first.
• First Coast (Florida) is the only single-state MAC; every other state shares a contractor with neighbors. California is JE — copy-pasting a Florida LCD packet here is a denial pattern we still see.
• California is outside CDC's historical Diabetes Belt core, but the national 12% diabetes figure still applies as a planning baseline until a clinic uses its own payer mix. Clinics asking for regenerative inventory still have to separate HCT/P 361 homologous-use products from unapproved “stem cell” claims (FDA 21 CFR 1271).

What CDC PLACES and JE each actually tell you

JE reviewers still want serial wound measurements and conservative-care history before CTPs, whether diabetes in San Bernardino is 13.6% or not. PLACES is planning data. The LCD is the claim.

Before the first wound care specialists shipment