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About Hannah Bracamonte

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So far Hannah Bracamonte has created 669 blog entries.

Has the ACA Expanded Medicare’s Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage for Kidney Transplant Recipients?

2024-03-29T02:08:08+00:00November 18th, 2013|Categories: Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage, Patient's Voice|

By Jim Myers, DPC Patient Ambassador. I had a conversation with my doctor last week. (My nephrologist, Dr. Vavilala, we call him Dr. V). He asked me if I had heard anything during my last trip to Washington, D.C. about an extension of coverage through the ACA to kidney transplant patients of the immunosuppressive drug coverage beyond the 36 month period that currently exists. This rang a bell in the back of my brain, so I decided to check it out. Every transplant patient or transplant candidate knows the current status of the law. If you are a kidney transplant [...]

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HOPE Act Moves to White House to be Signed into Law

2024-03-29T02:08:08+00:00November 13th, 2013|Categories: Access to Transplant, Article|Tags: |

The U.S. Congress took an important step Tuesday evening with House passage of the HIV Organ Policy Equity (HOPE) Act, which will allow research on donation of organs from deceased HIV-infected donors to HIV-infected recipients. Having been passed by the Senate in June, the bill is now positioned to move to the White House to be signed into law. The HOPE Act modernizes outdated federal law to reflect the current medical understanding of HIV infection and to allow for scientific research. For patients living with HIV, deceased donors with the same infection represent a unique source of organs. Passage of [...]

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How Engaged Are You?

2024-03-29T02:08:08+00:00November 7th, 2013|Categories: Patient's Voice|

Meshia Adams By Meshia Adams, DPC Patient Ambassador If you asked me if I was an engaged patient, I would tell you yes. I can tell you what my last lab values are; I am compliant with taking my medications and see my doctors on a regular basis. I consider myself to be a responsible patient who is closely involved in my healthcare needs. I haven’t always been active in my care or engaged as a patient. In the beginning, I was in a state of denial and was convinced my doctor had it wrong. Over the years, [...]

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Extension of Florida’s Managed Medical Assistance (MMA) Waiver

2024-03-29T02:08:08+00:00October 31st, 2013|Categories: Care Coordination, Comment Letter|

Justin Senior State Medicaid Director Agency for Health Care Administration 2727 Mahan Drive, MS #8 Tallahassee, Florida 32308 Re: Extension of Florida’s Managed Medical Assistance (MMA) Waiver (Project Number 11- W-00206/4) Dear Mr. Senior: Dialysis Patient Citizens (DPC) appreciates the opportunity to provide the Agency for Health Care Administration with comments on extension of the managed care waiver. As America’s largest patient-led organization representing dialysis patients, DPC’s membership consists of more than 26,000 end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients and their families. We seek to ensure the patient point of view is considered by policy makers on a wide range [...]

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Health Insurance Marketplaces Under Affordable Care Act Are Open For Business: What Does It Mean For Kidney Patients?

2024-03-29T02:08:08+00:00October 10th, 2013|Categories: Article, Promote Financial Security|Tags: |

On October 1, online health insurance exchanges went live. Here's what dialysis patients should know about the Affordable Care Act (also known as ACA or "Obamacare"): Health insurance sold in the ACA exchanges is for people who do not (or will not after January 1) have health insurance provided by Medicare or an employer-sponsored health plan. Kidney patients who have received a transplant and whose Medicare coverage has ended/will end soon will want to explore receiving coverage through an ACA exchange plan. Pre-existing conditions will not be a barrier to purchasing an exchange plan. DPC staff is researching whether, for [...]

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Promoting Care Coordination for Dialysis Patients

2024-03-29T02:08:08+00:00October 10th, 2013|Categories: Advance Patient Choice, Article, Care Coordination|

Federal policymakers have long grappled with the problem of better coordinating care for Medicare beneficiaries. As the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has noted, "Gaps exist in care coordination in fee-for-service Medicare because of the fragmentation of service delivery, the lack of tools to help communicate across settings or providers, and the lack of a financial incentive to coordinate care." Part of the problem is that the Original, or fee-for-service, Medicare largely froze in place mainstream medical and insurance practices as they stood in 1965, when the program was created. Many health policy thought-leaders believe that the problem of uncoordinated care has been [...]

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Kidney Care Partners’ Quality Initiative Spurs 25 Percent Improvement In Mortality Rates for Dialysis Patients Within the First 90 Days Of Treatment, 13.6 Percent Improvement In First Year

2024-03-29T02:08:09+00:00October 10th, 2013|Categories: Article, Increase Quality of Care|

Kidney Care Partners' PEAK (Performance Excellence and Accountability in Kidney Care) quality improvement initiative spurred a 25 percent reduction in mortality rates for dialysis patients in the first 90 days of treatment and a nearly 14 percent reduction during the first year, according to an analysis of data prepared by Brown University*. Launched in 2009, the PEAK Campaign was a voluntary community initiative designed to highlight proven practices with the goal of improving the rate of survival of kidney failure patients new to dialysis. Available data at the time indicated that overall survival rates for patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) [...]

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Dialysis Advocates Oppose Cuts in Washington, DC

2024-03-29T02:08:09+00:00October 8th, 2013|Categories: Article, Dialysis Funding|Tags: |

We still need your help letting your Members of Congress know that you strongly disagree with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid's (CMS) proposed 9.4% cut to dialysis treatment funding. Earlier this month we had an extremely successful Fly-In here in Washington, DC. A Fly-In, if you aren't familiar with the term, is a focused event that invites individuals to Washington, DC, to meet with key elected officials on Capitol Hill who need to be informed on a specific issue by the people who are personally impacted. Dialysis Patient Citizens (DPC), American Kidney Fund (AKF) and Renal Support Network (RSN) welcomed [...]

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