Dialysis Patient Citizens News
Advocacy Day 2026
During June 29th – 30th, DPC hosted our annual Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C. bringing together patients, family members, and care partners to meet with their Members of Congress to help elevate the dialysis patient voice. This year, 62 advocates attended our fly-in from 29 states, meeting with more than 90 Members of Congress and/or their staff. Advocates spoke with their Senators and Representative urging support for the Restore Act (H.R. 2199/S. 1173), which would allow patients to keep their private insurance coverage for the full 30-month transition [...]
Congress must support innovation for dialysis patients
Editor: I spent seven years on dialysis — the only treatment outside of a transplant for kidney failure — before receiving a kidney transplant in 2023. Every day I spent hooked up to that machine was a reminder of how fragile life becomes when your kidneys fail. Before my diagnosis, I was healthy; I was an athlete and musician. But after my diagnosis, I lost my job and my employer insurance with it. Bills piled up fast. It wasn’t until a social worker helped me apply for [...]
DPC Patient Ambassador Spotlight – Adrian Ropp
Check out our Patient Ambassador Spotlight, where we highlight members who elevate the voices of people with kidney disease. This month’s Spotlight is on Adrian Ropp from Draper, Utah. Originally from Blackfoot, Idaho, Adrian was diagnosed with kidney failure in 2022 and his life changed drastically. So, it was no small feat that on the third anniversary of receiving his kidney transplant, Adrian was on Capitol Hill, advocating with his fellow patient ambassadors for Dialysis Patient Citizens’ 2026 Annual Advocacy Day. When Adrian went on dialysis in [...]
Support Kidney Care Access Protection Act
To the editor: Kidney failure changed everything for me. I was already grieving the loss of my husband, daughter, and grandson when I learned my high blood pressure and diabetes had gone unchecked for years, leading to total kidney failure. Within weeks, I had to start dialysis. The first day, I sat in my car and cried. I wasn’t just scared for my health, I was terrified of the financial toll. I now rely on Medicare and Medicaid, but even then, I have to pay out of [...]
Congress must strengthen Medicare for dialysis patients
Editor: I was on dialysis — a treatment that kept me alive while my kidneys failed — for five years before receiving a kidney transplant. I was fortunate to keep private insurance for the first 30 months and then transition to Medicare along with New York’s supplemental coverage. Medicare’s approach to dialysis care falls short. There was little change in the treatments I received over the years. I, and many others like me, lacked access to innovative treatments that help control phosphorus, prevent itchy skin, manage anemia, [...]
Patient Advocates Head to D.C.
DPC is excited to welcome this year’s group of patient advocates to Washington, D.C. June 29th – 30th for our Annual Advocacy Day Event. Our advocates will be meeting with their representatives on the Hill to discuss two very important pieces of legislation for kidney patients: S. 2730 / H.R. 6214 – The Kidney Care Access Protection Act and H.R. 2199 / S. 1173 – The Restore Protections for Dialysis Patients Act. If you have not yet done so, please take a moment to urge your representatives to [...]
Letters: Bill in Congress would help dialysis patients
In 2017, while working in Melbourne, Australia, I became unable to walk three city blocks without stopping to catch my breath. Within hours of reaching the ER, I’d had two blood transfusions and was in the ICU. I found out one kidney had never fully developed, and the other was only 2% functional. I spent 15 months on hemodialysis before receiving a transplant in 2018. Two and a half years later, my body rejected it. In August 2024, I was back on dialysis. One in 3 Americans [...]
New dialysis patients deserve continued coverage
I was first diagnosed with kidney disease in 2001, shortly after the birth of my second daughter. What doctors thought was pregnancy-related high blood pressure turned out to be the start of kidney failure. For years, I tried to push forward, working full time and raising my girls, until my health declined sharply in 2010, and I went into a hypertensive crisis. I started peritoneal dialysis in 2011, which allowed me to keep working for a time. But, when I eventually had to switch to hemodialysis, the [...]
Protecting dialysis patients
My sister and I have polycystic kidney disease and shared the same dialysis schedule for years. I’ve been on dialysis nearly 15 years, surviving heart surgery and breast cancer before receiving a kidney transplant last October. My sister was not so lucky. After losing private insurance through divorce, she refused disability, believing she couldn’t survive on those benefits. Our family paid out of pocket to keep her on dialysis. By the time she got coverage, she had already started to give up. Her transplant failed. She passed [...]
Dialysis patients deserve protection
During my final year of college, I nearly died. What began as abdominal pain, misdiagnosed and mistreated, spiraled into sepsis that was shutting down my organs one by one. By the time I reached the hospital, I needed four units of blood and four hours of emergency dialysis before I could even have surgery. I was a college student on my parents' private insurance with no clue what the next steps were. That diagnosis changed everything. But instead of letting it define me, it drove me. I [...]
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Congress must restore protections for dialysis patients
My husband Greg was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease in 2006. He spent nearly seven years on dialysis before receiving a kidney transplant in 2013. For over a decade, that transplant gave him his life back. Then, in late 2023, complications from COVID caused his transplant to fail, and in October 2024, he returned to dialysis. The second time has been far harder — not because anything is different, but because we already know this fight is physically, emotionally and financially draining. When Greg was first diagnosed, [...]
DPC Adopts New AI Policy
To protect patient privacy and maintain the confidentiality of member discussions, Dialysis Patient Citizens has adopted a policy restricting the use of artificial intelligence (AI) meeting notetakers. Member privacy takes precedence over convenience and automation, and participants must be able to engage openly without concern that their conversations are being recorded, transcribed, analyzed, or retained by AI systems. Therefore, the use of Otter and any substantially similar application or service is prohibited during all DPC activities. We thank our members and community at large for adhering to this [...]
Letter to the Editor: Kidney disease
I was not looking for kidney disease when it found me. It surfaced during a routine pre-op workup for a completely unrelated procedure. After advocating for myself and pushing for a follow-up, I was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease in 2021. I am not on dialysis yet, but I know it’s not a question of if but when. That reality drives me to advocate. I have friends in the dialysis community living this right now, and I watch them navigate a system that too often fails to [...]
Letter to the editor: Act would restore safeguard for patients
I have been on hemodialysis for four years. My grandmother was also on dialysis. I started just a year or two after she did. So when I say kidney disease runs in my family, I mean it in the most personal way possible. Dialysis is exhausting. You sit for four to five hours at a time, sometimes dealing with staff who aren't always sensitive to what patients are going through. I am also managing more than just kidney failure. I am a below-the-knee amputee facing a second [...]
Kidney disease help
In 2020, COVID-19 caused my kidneys to fail. I spent five months in the hospital, four of them on a ventilator, and my wife was called and told to consider pulling the plug and letting me go. I survived, spent two years on peritoneal dialysis, and eventually received a lifesaving kidney transplant in 2023. Living through kidney failure opened my eyes to the fact that too many people don't know what help and resources are available to them, and that's because no one tells them. That has [...]
Kidney disease is devastating. Congress can help ease journey
I never knew I was sick. I went to the doctor’s office for a routine procedure, and the lab results sent me straight to the hospital. That was how I learned my kidneys were failing. There was no warning and no symptoms. I was working at AT&T at the time and had private insurance that carried me through. I received a kidney transplant. I was fortunate. My wife worked, and I had faith, family and friends. Not everyone has these luxuries. Now, because of a recent Supreme [...]
Throw kidney disease patients a lifeline
I learned I had polycystic kidney disease just before my wedding. What followed was 13 years of dialysis, the loss of my husband before he could donate his perfectly matched kidney, and years of fighting through grief, illness and uncertainty. Kidney disease affects entire families. In my case, because polycystic kidney disease is genetic, multiple relatives have faced dialysis. That’s why I became an advocate, a social worker and an educator. I’ve spent years writing books and hosting “The Lisa Baxter Show” to help patients understand how [...]
Letter: Urging support for Dialysis Patients Act
To The REVIEW: When I lost my second kidney in my 50s, I was suddenly thrown into a world of dialysis, medical bills and fear. I was self-employed and carried my own insurance, but as my health declined, I became too sick to work. Dialysis is exhausting enough on its own. No patients should also have to spend months or years fighting to keep health coverage and stay financially afloat. Yet, that was my reality. It took two and a half years of fighting before I was [...]