Hannah Bracamonte, Author at Dialysis Patient Citizens

Permanent Medicare Physician Payment Increase Passes Congress

Hannah Bracamonte2024-03-29T01:50:33+00:00April 7th, 2015|Categories: Dialysis Funding, Medigap Coverage|

Congress recently passed the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, also known as the permanent “doc fix” bill. The bill passed the House of Representatives 392-37 and the Senate 92-8, with strong bipartisan support. The White House has announced President Obama’s intent to sign the bill into law. Those who voted in favor of the bill felt it was necessary to permanently replace the current Medicare physician payment formula. In 1997, Congress passed a formula known as the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula, which unexpectedly dictated regular pay cuts for doctors. In 2003, many in Congress began to fear that the [...]

Celebrate World Kidney Day Today (March 12, 2015)

Hannah Bracamonte2024-03-29T01:50:33+00:00March 12th, 2015|Categories: Article, What is Kidney Disease?|Tags: World Kidney Day, World Kidney Month|

The 10th anniversary of World Kidney Day (WKD) is here! WKD was started to raise awareness of the fact that 10% of the adult population worldwide has kidney disease.The goal of WKD is to educate people on the importance of their kidneys and on the most common causes of kidney disease (high blood pressure and diabetes). The hope is to prevent kidney disease and related diseases in the first place.While our healthcare systems would benefit from reduced expenses, millions would benefit from an improved quality of life. This makes early screenings for kidney disease all the more important.Please use today as an [...]

What are Dialysis Patients’ Priorities for Quality Information? Insights from DPC Patient Survey

Hannah Bracamonte2024-03-29T01:50:33+00:00March 11th, 2015|Categories: 5-Star Ratings, Article, Quality Incentive Program|

After the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced its plans to release the Dialysis Facility Compare star rating system, DPC began to discuss with its membership what would make such a rating system successful. The two areas that DPC’s Board Members, Patient Ambassadors and membership all rated highest were 1) staff respect/listening and 2) patient education. Staff Respect/Listening: This topic compresses two questions from the annual Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) questionnaire that Medicare requires dialysis patients to complete. It was even more apparent during our focus group discussions of our survey responses how upset [...]

Urge Your Members of Congress to Co-Sponsor the Chronic Kidney Disease Improvement in Research and Treatment Act!

Hannah Bracamonte2024-03-29T01:50:33+00:00March 11th, 2015|Categories: Care Coordination, Dialysis Funding, Medicare Advantage|

Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD), Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) were joined by Representatives Tom Marino (R-PA), John Lewis (D-GA) and Peter Roskam (R-IL) in introducing the Chronic Kidney Disease Improvement in Research and Treatment Act (S. 598/H.R. 1130) to improve the health of kidney patients. If passed, this bill would provide access to Medicare Advantage (MA) plans for dialysis patients. This bill would also enhance current research efforts related to chronic kidney disease (CKD) by: Requiring the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to calculate the overall cost of CKD care, ensure that federal funding for CKD research is appropriate relative to [...]

DPC Fly-In Participants Lobby Members of Congress Despite Snow Storm, Government Closure
Gallery

DPC Fly-In Participants Lobby Members of Congress Despite Snow Storm, Government Closure

Hannah Bracamonte2024-03-29T01:50:33+00:00March 11th, 2015|Categories: Article, Medicare Advantage|Tags: Advocacy Day|

DPC’s annual Kidney Month fly-in was held last Wednesday and Thursday (March 4 & 5). Patient advocates from across the country flew to Washington, DC to speak with their Members of Congress on issues critical to their care. And despite numerous obstacles, they made sure their voices were heard. On March 4, patient advocates participated in an in-depth advocacy training, as many were going to Capitol Hill for the first time. This training helped to ensure that participants had the information and confidence to discuss the importance of preserving dialysis funding as well as why dialysis patients should be allowed [...]

DPC Urges Arizona to Maintain Medicaid Reimbursement for Dialysis

Hannah Bracamonte2024-03-29T01:50:34+00:00February 27th, 2015|Categories: Comment Letter, Medicaid, State Advocacy|

Governor Doug Ducey 1700 West Washington St. Phoenix, AZ 85007 RE: Proposed Cuts to Medicaid Coverage Dear Governor Ducey, As America’s largest patient-led organization representing over 28,000 members, Dialysis Patient Citizens (DPC) works to improve the quality of life of all dialysis patients through education and advocacy. Dialysis is a life-sustaining care delivered to over 12,400 patients in Arizona who have End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD), also known as kidney failure. For those with ESRD, receiving regular dialysis or a kidney transplant are the only treatments that allow patients to continue living. The number of individuals with kidney failure continues to [...]

DPC Elevates Patient Priorities with Medicare Regarding Dialysis Facility Compare Star Ratings

Hannah Bracamonte2024-03-29T01:50:34+00:00February 18th, 2015|Categories: 5-Star Ratings, Comment Letter, Quality Incentive Program|

Elena Balovlenkov, R.N. Technical Lead for Dialysis Facility Compare Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services 7500 Security Boulevard Mail Stop S3-02-01 Baltimore, MD 21224 Dear Elena: To meet your timeline for raising issues to be brought before the DFC Star Rating TEP, DPC recently conducted a survey of our active patient volunteers asking them to identify priority items for quality measures to be included in both DFC star ratings and the QIP. Per the advice of the Kidney Care Quality Alliance (KCQA) consultant on quality measures, we developed a lengthy list of subjects for measures, and asked patients to choose [...]

DOPPS Releases Results on Dialysis Trends from 2010-2014

Hannah Bracamonte2024-03-29T01:50:34+00:00February 4th, 2015|Categories: Article, What is Kidney Disease?|Tags: Research|

The Arbor Research Collaborative for Health researches dialysis through their Dialysis Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study (DOPPS), among other programs. The DOPPS Practice Monitor (DPM) recently released trends they observed in dialysis facilities from 2010-2014. Hemoglobin trends The recommended hemoglobin level for a dialysis patient is between 10 – 11 g/dl. From 2010 to 2014, mean hemoglobin (Hgb) levels in dialysis patients declined from 11.5 g/dl to 10.9 g/dl. The percentage of dialysis patients with Hgb under 10 g/dl rose from 8.3% to 19.1%, which is bad news because low Hgb levels make anemia more likely. High Hgb levels increase the [...]

Department of Health & Human Services Announces Pay-for-Performance Goals

Hannah Bracamonte2024-03-29T01:50:34+00:00February 4th, 2015|Categories: Article, Quality Incentive Program|

The US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) recently announced goals for shifting the traditional fee-for-service Medicare payment model to a pay-for-performance model. In a pay-for-performance model, payment is based on the quality rather than quantity of care provided. One HHS goal is to tie 30% of fee-for-service Medicare payments to quality through alternative payment models like Accountable Care Organizations or bundled payments by the end of 2016, and 50% by the end of 2018. The dialysis community has a unique history in this area. Dialysis providers did not used to receive an annual update in their Medicare payments, but [...]

Affordable Care Act Enrollment Reaches 9.5 Million as February 15 Deadline Approaches

Hannah Bracamonte2024-03-29T01:50:34+00:00February 4th, 2015|Categories: Promote Financial Security|Tags: Affordable Care Act|

Open enrollment for individual coverage in the Affordable Care Act (ACA)’s public health insurance exchanges began in November of last year. The deadline for enrollment is February 15, 2015. So far approximately 9.5 million people have either newly enrolled or re-enrolled in the exchanges, with 7.1 million enrolling in the 37 states that use the federal marketplace, HealthCare.gov. Of those 7.1 million, approximately 6.2 million received financial assistance to help pay for coverage. Also, 4.16 million re-enrolled in health plans, and 3 million selected a plan for the first time. Again, thank you to the patients who have shared stories with [...]

About Hannah Bracamonte

Dialysis Patient Citizens

Recent News