"No" to the Proposed Medicare Cuts on Dialysis

My blog post this week is about the proposal by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that would cut Medicare reimbursement for dialysis. I am very concerned about these proposed cuts, and how it would impact my friends at the dialysis center. According to one of the articles that I’ve read, these cuts would reduce the reimbursement rate by 10% to almost $20 per dialysis session. Medicare reimbursement already does not cover the cost of dialysis. At three days a week at about four to five weeks per month, that would be at least an additional expense $240 per month.

If I were still undergoing dialysis treatments, these cuts would probably not make significant difference for me. Thanks to my employer, I have excellent health insurance. Since I had been on dialysis for some four years, I did rely on Medicare to pay for 80% of my dialysis treatments. Since the rest was paid for my insurance, I have had minimal costs per treatment and for that, I feel fortunate. However, I am probably in the minority.

I am thinking of the other patients in the center who completely rely on Medicare to pay for their treatments. For someone with a fixed income or are unemployed, an additional $240 per month would be a significant strain on their budget. People on a fixed income already have a difficult time ‘making ends meet.’

I am thinking specifically of the lady who usually sat across from me. I believe her name is Lupe. She is an older lady, and usually has a hard time when she was having treatments.  She did not speak English; so we rarely had a conversation (I am not that conversant in Spanish either).

Lupe had to stop working because her dialysis treatments were making her very exhausted. For extra money (probably really to make ends meet), she made and sold tamales. Making tamales probably also kept her mind off dialysis and her kidney disease. She would sell tamales in the center, and the technicians loved it. They would order 10 at a time and different flavors (she sells them for $1.50 each). I actually had two of them, and they were absolutely delicious.

I cannot imagine what might happen to Lupe if these cuts are implemented. An additional $240 per month would be hard on someone who is unemployed. This may mean that she has to cut on food or worse, on prescription drugs and even on some dialysis treatments.

And it is just not Lupe, it is also Jerry, who has to continue dialysis because he is considered too old and too ill; the Chinese lady who did not seem to have any family who would take care of her, and my husband’s buddy and fellow Pittsburg Steelers fan, who has to keep on working because he has a family to help take care of. Multiply this number with the number of dialysis centers all over the country and there would be thousands of very good people affected.

Dialysis patients are suffering enough - we need to support them as much as possible. As the petition states, “We urge the Administration and Congress to ensure that Medicare reimbursement for dialysis is sufficient to cover the cost of care.” Please contact your local representative through the National Kidney Foundation's Take Action Network.

It is the humane and compassionate thing to do!