Policy and Politics News

During a public meeting Dec. 18, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission presented a draft recommendation that Congress eliminate the update to the dialysis facility payment rate for calendar year 2016.

Dialysis Patient Citizens has filed the first challenge to a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services quality program under the Data Quality Act, contending that the agency’s Dialysis Facility Compare (DFC) star ratings methodology fails to satisfy federal requirements for objectivity and utility in presenting information to the public.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has released a video that reviews coding information for ICD-10, which is set to be implemented in October 2015.

The renal community has complained for years that the Medicare dollar isn’t enough to treat the increasingly complex individual with kidney disease. As much as price gouging the commercial payers seems a twisted way of cost shifting, it’s necessary to keep the books balanced, dialysis providers say.

It has been a tumultuous year for the renal community, and 2015 will keep everyone with their ear to the ground. Here are select important events in the 12 months of 2014 that shaped renal policy.

Health spending continued to grow at a slow rate last year, the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported Dec. 3. In 2013, health spending grew at 3.6% and total national health expenditures in the United States reached $2.9 trillion, or $9,255 per person. The annual OACT report showed health spending continued a pattern of low growth—between 3.6% and 4.1% for five consecutive years.The report is published in Health Affairs.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released a memo to Medicare Part D payers on Nov. 14, revising guidance regarding payment for non-dialysis-related drugs for Medicare patients.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has extended the deadline to review and comment on the quarterly Dialysis Facility Compare preview reports for dialysis facilities to Dec. 2 at 5:00 p.m. ET.

Prior organ donors who later need a kidney transplant experience brief waiting times and receive excellent quality kidneys, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The findings indicate that a U.S. policy that gives priority to prior organ donors on the transplant waiting list is working, according to the researchers.

On Oct. 31, CMS issued the final rule that updates the payment policies and payment rates for the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for 2015. The final rule was published in the Federal Register Nov. 13.