Policy and Politics News

As I write this, my hometown of Phoenix is getting ready to host the National Football League’s 49th edition of the Superbowl. What’s grabbing the headlines is not the anticipated matchup (I’ll predict the Patriots and the Packers for the title game), but how much area hotels are spiking their room rates.  

According to 2014 dialysis facility reports from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the standardized transplantation rate among dialysis patients at Northwest Kidney Centers is 1.8, or 80% better than the national average.

Three years ago, the Chief Medical Officers from 13 dialysis providers met to share common issues about patient outcomes: successes and area for improvement. A commitment to share clinical and facility level approaches to issues, protocols, and policies, even data, grew out of this initial meeting. Since that time there have been two national meetings attended by the CMOs and their operational teams and enormous collaboration has taken place to improve patient satisfaction and quality of dialysis. We have had monthly calls, including separate calls by operations teams, to enhance the experience of the patient undergoing dialytic therapy. This is not about the business of the dialysis provider. It is about the quality of patient care.

Here are some real-life examples from the dialysis workplace that NN&I readers may have experienced.

DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc. has received six subpoenas from the Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for documents from six different dialysis centers in Southern California, according to an 8-K form the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Each subpoena seeks the medical records of a single patient of the respective dialysis center.

According to the latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Budget and Economic Outlook released Jan. 26, the 10-year cost of freezing Medicare physician payments has increased since previous estimates. CBO estimates the cost of freezing pay for 10 years (2016-2025) to be $131 billion, an increase from the $119 billion forecast in November. To avoid sustainable growth rate (SGR) cuts for the rest of 2015, CBO estimated it would cost another $6 billion. The current SGR patch runs out at the end of March.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has updated its Dialysis Facility Compare star ratings information page to include disclaimer language about low ratings.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell announced Jan. 26 goals and a timeline to move the Medicare program, and the health care system at large, toward paying providers based on the quality, rather than the quantity of care they give patients.

A plan to launch the first round of the Comprehensive ESRD Care Initiative, or renal ACO demonstration, in January with large dialysis providers has been postponed until July, when the agency was set to start round 2 of the project with small dialysis organizations.

Updated Jan. 26 to include American Kidney Fund response.