Review of 2022 cover stories: CMS Innovation Center launches Kidney Care Choices model
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation launched the Kidney Care Choices model to pay nephrologists and their practice teams to treat patients with stage 4 and 5 chronic kidney disease.
“One of the goals of this model is to delay the need for dialysis and encourage kidney transplantation. Doing so reduces expensive hospitalizations paid by Medicare while improving patient outcomes,” Terry Ketchersid, MD, MBA, chief medical officer of the Integrated Care Group at Fresenius Medical Care North America and co-chief medical officer of InterWell Health, told Nephrology News & Issues.
It was the Nephrology News & Issues Cover Story in January 2022.
Another cover story from 2022 reported new FDA-approved drugs to treat diabetic kidney disease and CVD.
“Because patients with diabetes are at such high risk for not only progression of kidney complications, but CV complications, a multipronged approach is needed, including glucose control, but also controlling other traditional risk factors like blood pressure and dyslipidemia,” Erin D. Michos, MD, MHS, associate professor of medicine and director of women’s cardiovascular health at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease, told Endocrine Today. “Now we have three therapies, if you include [angiotensin-converting enzyme] inhibitors or [angiotensin receptor blockers], SGLT2 inhibitors and finerenone, that help the heart and the kidney. These patients are at very high risk, and they should be treated aggressively.”
Read these and more cover stories from 2022 below:
CKD moves to center stage with launch of Kidney Care Choices mode
Brent W. Miller, MD, has always held that caring for patients with chronic kidney disease should be the true calling for nephrology. Read more.
New drugs bring dual benefits for ‘intertwined’ diabetic kidney disease, CVD
Diabetic kidney disease is the leading cause of end-stage renal disease in the U.S., and 50% of adults initiating renal replacement therapy have diabetes, according to the CDC. Read more.
Education, champions key to help patients stay committed to home dialysis
In the 1960s, if you were lucky enough to be approved for dialysis by your regional patient selection committee, home care was the one – and only – choice. Read more.
Understaffed schools, stressful environment and pandemic pose challenges for nursing
Tina Livaudais, RN, BSN, MBA, has a good story to tell about getting involved in kidney care. Read more.
Medicare’s aggressive approach to CKD attracts providers, value-based care groups
Dialysis providers saw a change in the payment model for treating Medicare patients when CMS instituted the Prospective Payment System in 2011. Read more.
Transitional care units help patients with modality choice, can improve outcomes
In 2020, nephrologist Paul Parker, MD, was getting ready to retire as a medical director of Fresenius Medical Care. Read more.
Kidney stones, CKD connection unclear, but clinicians collaborate on treatment
It did not take long for nephrologist and kidney stone specialist David S. Goldfarb, MD, FASN, to realize that the buildup of pain radiating from the right side of his abdomen was from a kidney stone that had begun its downward migration. Read more.
Skilled nursing facilities, dialysis providers collaborate on care for patients with ESKD
When Mark Kaszirer, LNHA, gets a call from a hospital looking to place a patient who needs short-term rehabilitation or long-term care, it creates an opportunity for one of his eight skilled nursing facilities. Read more.
Motivational interviewing is key to success with the renal diet
When Alexandra Lautenschlaeger, RDN, LD, counsels a patient with end-stage kidney disease who is starting dialysis, she understands the long journey the patient has already logged. Read more.
Clinicians push for a conservative path forward on initiating dialysis
A search in the medical literature or for information directed to patients on when treatment for kidney failure should begin is not likely to yield a consensus. Read more.
Management of allograft loss requires teamwork, patient involvement
Tarek Alhamad, MD, has witnessed the grief that patients with a kidney transplant experience when they are facing loss of an allograft. Read more.
Pill burden, adverse events signal new treatments needed for phosphorus management
Shivam Joshi, MD, knows he has few options for his patients on dialysis when it comes to the management of hyperphosphatemia. And none are very effective. Read more.