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 Pesh Patel from Lafayette, New Orleans.
In 2017, while working in Melbourne, Australia, Pesh became unable to walk three city blocks without stopping to catch his breath. He was rushed to the hospital, where he found out that one of his kidneys had never fully developed, and the other was only 2% functional.
Pesh then spent 15 months on hemodialysis before receiving a transplant in 2018. Two and a half years later though, his body rejected it so in August 2024, he had to go back on dialysis.
With 1 in 3 Americans is at risk for kidney disease, lawmakers cannot afford to ignore patient protections. However, a 2022 Supreme Court ruling now allows private insurers to push dialysis patients off their coverage before the traditional 30-month protection window closes. This leaves newly diagnosed patients, many of whom are completely unaware of the disease until they crash into dialysis, without the financial stability they need to focus on surviving.
That’s why Pesh is urging his legislators, U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields and U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, to support the Restore Protections for Dialysis Patients Act (H.R. 2199/S. 1173). Dialysis patients deserve to keep their coverage and this bill protects patients’ private coverage for that 30-month buffer, allowing them the time and stability they need before transitioning to Medicare.
You can read Pesh’s full Letter to the Editor, written to his local paper, The New Orleans Times-Picayune, and featured on DPC’s website here: https://www.dialysispatients.org/news/letters-bill-in-congress-would-help-dialysis-patients/.
Patient Ambassadors represent DPC by serving as leaders in their community and local dialysis facilities. Learn more about this critical role and make a difference in the lives of dialysis patients by applying for DPC’s Patient Ambassador program.
