NKF Responds to Medicare’s Proposed Changes to Payment and Quality Programs for Dialysis Facilities

Excellent letter from NKF about the CMS rating system

Back in July we shared the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid’s (CMS) proposed changes to dialysis payment and quality incentive program. After gathering input from kidney patients and professionals we issued formal comments to CMS, which included recommendations for revising their proposals to strengthen patients’ access to high quality care.

Our concern about the proposed changes to payment is that rural facilities that already, on average, lose money treating Medicare patients would receive payment cuts. Dialysis providers are likely to close facilities that continue to lose money, which could cause patients to face greater transportation challenges if they have to commute further for dialysis. NKF recommended that CMS make changes to the way it pays for dialysis to ensure facilities in rural areas are able to cover the costs of providing the care that is needed to improve the health of their patients.

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About DevonTexas

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.

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