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Opinion | Letter: Pass Kidney-care Bill

2024-03-29T01:10:15+00:00June 1st, 2021|Categories: Care Coordination, Patient Ambassadors, Patient's Voice, Spotlight|

By Kristi Flynn of Grovetown, GA I have struggled with kidney disease my entire life. I was diagnosed when I was 7, then started dialysis at 25 before finally receiving a kidney transplant in 2018. Throughout all of this, the role of coordinating care has fallen completely on me, a task I find particularly difficult because I am legally blind. Even within my transplant center, doctors can’t always communicate, and even more frustrating, occasionally change each other’s plans without consulting each other. With a more streamlined approach to care coordination, a lot of these problems could be relieved. Thankfully, Congress is [...]

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DPC Board Member Donnie Anderson Addresses CDC Infection Control Conference

2024-03-29T01:10:16+00:00May 12th, 2021|Categories: Innovation, News, Patient's Voice|Tags: |

Recorded for the 2021 Making Dialysis Safer for Patients Coalition Virtual Meeting DPC Board Member Donnie Anderson spoke on a panel entitled "COVID-19 from The Patient Perspective” at the CDC’s 2021 Making Dialysis Safer for Patients Coalition meeting. The virtual conference held in May was the Coalition’s fourth meeting to advance efforts to prevent bloodstream infections in dialysis patients. The conference facilitated information-sharing and idea generation among dialysis and infection prevention experts.

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Passing kidney care legislation will help dialysis patients

2024-03-29T01:10:16+00:00May 12th, 2021|Categories: Patient Stories in the News|

When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit last year, it forced a lot of people out of work. That was especially the case for dialysis patients like me, as our kidney disease means we’re at a higher risk for getting seriously sick if we get COVID-19, and we’ve had to take extra steps to stay safe. While I’m looking forward to returning to work, doing so means I will lose some of the coverage I have that covers what Medicare doesn’t. Unless I can get that “Medigap” coverage, I and other dialysis patients in my situation will be stuck paying significant [...]

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Letters: Action Needed to Help Alabama Dialysis Patients

2024-03-29T01:10:16+00:00May 1st, 2021|Categories: Care Coordination, Patient Ambassadors, Patient's Voice, Spotlight|

By Cortney Beavers of Pell City, AL. One of the most difficult moments of my life was finding out that, despite being only 24 years old, my kidney was beginning to fail. After years of dialysis and a kidney transplant, I learned through my experiences in the health care system what needs to be improved. Doctors and nurses need a better care coordination framework to more effectively treat their patients. I had the benefit of working with terrific nurses and other providers who met my needs and communicated well between one another, but unfortunately that’s not the case for every [...]

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Andrew Conkling: Expanding Medigap coverage for dialysis patients is a welcome and necessary change

2024-03-29T01:10:16+00:00April 29th, 2021|Categories: Patient Stories in the News|

Kidney disease has been a major part of my life from the very start. I was born with just one functioning kidney and, defying doctors’ expectations, made it to age 25 before I needed to start dialysis treatments. Through my own experiences with dialysis and my conversations with other patients in dialysis clinics across the United States in the years since, I’ve seen that there are still a lot of barriers that prevent patients who have End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) from getting the level of care they need at an affordable cost. This has only been magnified since the start [...]

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New Bipartisan Effort Could Provide Much-Needed Coverage for NYC Kidney Patients

2024-03-29T01:10:16+00:00April 28th, 2021|Categories: Patient Stories in the News|

Living with kidney disease, undergoing dialysis, and ultimately traveling out-of-state to receive a kidney transplant provided me with a harsh lesson in how challenging life with End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) can be both physically and financially. It’s already difficult having to go through all these treatments even before considering the financial burdens that come with them. The costs are a lot for patients, and many of them are hit with bills they simply can’t afford. As those costs pile up, patients can become ineligible for treatments that they need, and even can be excluded from getting a transplant. This especially [...]

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DPC Advocates Help Push State Legislation Forward

2024-03-29T01:10:16+00:00April 20th, 2021|Categories: Advance Patient Choice, Article, Medigap Coverage, State Advocacy, Transplant Donor Protection, Uncategorized|

State legislatures are in high gear during spring, and efforts by state legislators to support dialysis patients are in full swing this month. We’ve already had several legislative victories on living organ donor protection bills, while Medigap expansion legislation for the ESRD population has been introduced in multiple states. With support from multiple DPC Patient Ambassadors and Board Members sharing their personal stories on these two policy issues, DPC is making robust arguments for states to actively help improve the quality of life for End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) patients. Kentucky, New Jersey, Maryland and Washington legislatures have already passed [...]

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New Year, New Administration Brings Changes to Medicare’s Kidney Demonstration Projects

2024-03-29T01:10:16+00:00April 14th, 2021|Categories: Article, Care Coordination, Dialysis Funding, Medicare Advantage, Protect Patient Care, Quality Incentive Program|

2021 was supposed to mark the beginning of three new Medicare programs to demonstrate innovations in kidney care, but a last-minute decision from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation has suspended two of them. This action unfortunately leaves about 50,000 dialysis patients with a nine-month gap in extra assistance they were receiving from a successful program that expired March 31. Here is the rundown on the current landscape of Medicare demonstration projects that impact dialysis patients. Demonstration projects are used by Medicare to test new models of care and/or new models of paying providers within Medicare’s traditional fee-for-service program. [...]

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Letter: Medigap Expansion Act needs Delaware’s support

2024-03-29T01:10:16+00:00April 13th, 2021|Categories: Patient Ambassadors, Patient Stories in the News, Spotlight|

Life on dialysis is hard. It involves several hours-long treatments every week and puts a major strain on everyone involved. It’s a frustrating process that I wouldn’t have been able to get through without my family. The last thing you want to worry about while going through dialysis is the cost. The treatments already weigh on patients and families both physically and mentally, and no dialysis patient should be forced to fear they will be priced out of life-saving care. That is why it is so important that lawmakers in Washington rally behind the Jack Reynolds Memorial Medigap Expansion Act, [...]

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National Minority Health Month

2024-03-29T01:10:16+00:00April 5th, 2021|Categories: Article, Improve Access to Care|Tags: |

April is also recognized as National Minority Health Month, in an effort to highlight and address the health disparities experienced in minority communities. This is especially prevalent among kidney and dialysis patients; Hispanic or Latino Americans 1.3 times more likely to have kidney failure than white Americans, Black or African Americans are almost 4 times more likely, American Indians and Alaska Natives are 1.2 times more likely, and Asian Americans are also at a higher risk. Additionally, the main risk factors for chronic kidney disease (CKD) disproportionately affect minorities. Diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, family history of kidney failure, diabetes, [...]

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