This is a moment when your action is required for your benefit and all the others in dialysis! Quickly, CMS (The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid) has proposed a huge cut to dialysis payments for Medicare patients. They have proposed a 9,4 percent cut to what they pay to providers for dialysis patients on Medicare.
Specifically, that means: “CMS proposed cuts would reduce the Medicare composite base rate from $240.36 per dialysis patient per treatment to $216.95 per treatment.” That seemingly small $23 difference adds up to $828 per patient per year. If there are 75 patients in your facility (figuring 25 per shift), that’s sixty-two THOUSAND dollars per year! That’s one or two techs depending on pay and area, etc. It could mean one less Registered Nurse or facility manager! But even one tech lost to these cuts is too many!
You can take action (if you haven’t already) to send a letter to your Congress members via the Dialysis Patient Citizens (DPC) website.
From DPC: “Send a letter! Easily customize a prewritten letter with your story and click send.” For a link to the DPC Letter CLICK HERE
Also, from DPC: “Follow up with a phone call! We’ll give you the number and the talking points.” For a link to the phone numbers of your members of Congress and what to say when they answer, CLICK HERE. I know it seems intimidating to phone your member of Congress but a receptionist will answer and all you have to do is tell them you are against the proposed cuts in Medicare payments to dialysis providers (see what DPC suggests.) And Ta-Da! You have become an active part of the legislative process!
Thanks all, You and I will really appreciate it in the long run if you take some action today! And, leave a comment, to tell me what you did about this very important issue!
I am a person with ESRD (End Stage Renal Disease) which means my kidneys don't work. Forty or so years ago that would have been a death sentence but today there is Dialysis which means I could be hooked up to a machine that would clean my blood as the kidneys should. Three days a week, I went to a dialysis center and had too very large needles stuck in my arm to remove and replace my blood as it passed through a process where it was cleaned and the fluid was removed, a process taking a little over four hours each time.
In November 2017, I received a kidney transplant from a deceased donor. My life went into overdrive. With a "new" functioning kidney, I no longer had to go to a dialysis center and my days were not open to be lived rather than recovering from dialysis which meant dialyzing for three days and resting for 4 days a week. I work full-time and often 50 hours per week. It is something I never imagined. I highly recommend it! HeeHee
I want to advance knowledge about dialysis and transplant so that others can learn from my experience and mistakes. We shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel, eh? There is so much to be learned and experienced about our predicament. There are vast resources available to support us and enrich our lives but many patients don't know about them. There are also many issues that we have to deal with whether we want to or not. So I blog about them in www.DevonTexas.com
All comments are confidential until I approve them. If you don't want your comment public, let me know and I will respect that. So, feel free to leave a comment.
I also blog in LegacyTales in WordPress if you are interested in the ramblings of a Old Man. Give a peek and let me know what you think. https://legacytales.wordpress.com/
Enjoy.
My pleasure, Craig. I’m working on more about this issue so everyone understands why it’s so important. My mentor filled me in on some history of this as it applies to the large-scale and small, independent dialysis providers. Fascinating! More to some this week.
A podcast where I invite guests from all walks of life to discuss their favorite movies, and we use that film as a starting point to talk about deeper issues such as faith, politics, and social issues.
Hi Devon, thanks for bringing this to my attention. I will send a letter.
Craig
My pleasure, Craig. I’m working on more about this issue so everyone understands why it’s so important. My mentor filled me in on some history of this as it applies to the large-scale and small, independent dialysis providers. Fascinating! More to some this week.