Renal Business Today

Centers For Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)

Pushing for Prevention

These days, dialysis centers are quickly becoming all-service centers for kidney disease patients, who often have a number of complex conditions associated with their disease that need to be monitored. The most notable, perhaps, is diabetes, which is inexorably linked with ...More
January 29, 2008
Posted in Articles, Business, Clinical & Pharma, Government & Regulation, Practice Management
Catching Information on the Web

Editor’s Note: This is part one of a two part series. Part 2 will be published in March and will cover state, patient and data resources on the Web. Internet can be a double-edged sword. Unlike any other time in human history, we literally have a world of information at our ...More
January 29, 2008
Posted in Articles, Business, Clinical & Pharma, Government & Regulation, Practice Management
National Renal files suit against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia

FRANKLIN, Tenn.—National Renal Alliance said today that it has field a civil complaint against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia for allegedly singling out dialysis benefits and cutting out-of-network reimbursement to the dialysis provider’s Georgia clinics. ...More
January 16, 2008
Posted in News, Business, Government & Regulation, Practice Management
U.S. dialysis patients pay the most for prescription drugs and still don't take them

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--An international study of dialysis patients shows that although U.S. residents have the highest out-of-pocket drug costs, even those who can afford their prescription drugs are far less likely to take them than patients in other countries. The University ...More
January 9, 2008
Posted in News, Business, Clinical & Pharma, Government & Regulation, Practice Management
Preparing for the Future

Improving the quality of dialysis care was on the agenda of Medicare Payment Advisory Committee meeting late last year in which the commissioners candidly discussed how possibly expanding the dialysis payment bundle could lead to improved efficiency and quality of care. ...More
January 7, 2008
Posted in Articles, Business, Clinical & Pharma, Government & Regulation
Obese patients wait longer for kidney transplants

BALTIMORE--Obese kidney disease patients face not only the usual long odds of a tissue match and organ rejection, but also are significantly less likely than normal-weight people to receive a kidney transplant, according to new research from Johns Hopkins specialists. ...More
December 19, 2007
Posted in News, Clinical & Pharma, Government & Regulation
Taking sides in the MSP debate

Put a few billion dollars on the table and somebody is bound to notice. That’s exactly what’s happening in Washington as there is growing support to reintroduce a proposal to shift dialysis costs from Medicare to private insurers by extending the Medicare Secondary Payer ...More
November 30, 2007
Posted in Articles, Business, Government & Regulation, Practice Management
MedPAC discusses ways to improve dialysis care

Improving the quality of dialysis care was on the agenda of a Medicare Payment Advisory Committee meeting this month in which the commissioners candidly discussed how possibly expanding the dialysis payment bundle could lead to improved efficiency and quality of care. ...More
November 21, 2007
Posted in News, Business, Clinical & Pharma, Government & Regulation
ESRD population to increase 60 percent by 2020, study says

SAN FRANCISCO—The projected number of end-stage renal disease patients is projected to rise to approximately 785,000 by 2020—an increase of 60 percent compared to the number of ESRD patients in 2005, according to research presented at the American Society of Nephrology ...More
November 12, 2007
Posted in News, Clinical & Pharma, Government & Regulation
USRDS Releases 2007 Report

In late September, the U.S. Renal Data System released its 2007 Annual Data Report, the holy grail of data for the renal community, and it showed that while costs to treat end-stage renal disease continue to rise, the number of new patients is beginning to stabilize. There ...More
November 1, 2007
Posted in Articles, Clinical & Pharma, Government & Regulation, Practice Management