News — With 37,000,000 people in the United States affected by kidney diseases and more than 720,000 of these individuals with kidney failure, ’s bold vision to realign the priorities, practices, and payments in kidney care to make them better serve those individuals with kidney diseases while reducing silos, supporting nephrologist-led care, and aligning incentives to optimize patient choice and outcomes. ASN has been meeting and recommending policy components to senior Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) leaders all year in preparation for this new strategy. The July 10 announcement is a significant advancement towards accomplishing these goals.
The Medicare Program alone is spending $35 billion annually on dialysis for Americans with kidney failure and $114 billion annually for all kidney diseases – just Medicare. These totals do not include the VA, the Indian Health Services, and the private sector. People with kidney diseases and kidney failure deserve transformative policy changes to help reduce silos of care, support nephrologist-led care, and align incentives to optimize patient choice and outcomes.
“Today’s announcement gives me hope for our patients – the 37,000,000 Americans impacted by kidney diseases. I hope these policy changes help us be better aligned to slow progression of kidney diseases, spur more innovation in treating kidney diseases, and offer more choices when dialysis is necessary such as home therapy or more portable dialysis. Hope is long overdue for our patients.” – Mark Rosenberg, MD, FASN, President of the American Society of Nephrology.
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