Medpage Today has the story:
Kidney Disease Payment System Draws Medicare Scrutiny
'We do not think the state of kidney disease care is acceptable'
"Medicare needs to change the way it pays for kidney disease treatment in order to get better results, Adam Boehler, director of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation, said here.
"We do not think the state of kidney care is acceptable," Boehler said Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. "Right now, we're at a place where 10% of patients in Medicare [with kidney disease] are seen at home, while you have Hong Kong, with a 70% rate. That's not OK. The level of transplants is not OK."
"What happens is that end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is siphoned out and [effort is] focused there, instead of viewing the whole spectrum, instead of thinking about chronic kidney disease before ranging from diagnosing it in the first place, to integration of later-stage chronic kidney disease, to ESRD," he said. "Because what you really want is the prevention of ESRD from developing," he said. "If it develops, you want [it] to be transplant wherever possible; if not, [treatment at] home wherever possible, and it should be a last resort that people go to a dialysis center."
...
"Boehler said he wasn't trying to demonize dialysis centers. "It's our fault; we set the incentives," he said, referring to Medicare. "You need to change those incentives. If we want people to do what's best for patients, if we want them to lower costs and improve quality for patients, they need to make money for doing that -- we'll look specialty by specialty to set it up like that."
"Medicare spends about $120 billion a year on kidney care, Boehler noted. "The first thing you may think about in ESRD is dialysis centers ... but that is not the majority of spend. The majority of spend is in other places -- hospitals, complications arising from them, et cetera. That doesn't mean we have to cut the spend there; it means you have to change around the way people make money." Right now, he said, for the dialysis centers, "if somebody gets a transplant, that's a lost customer."
Kidney Disease Payment System Draws Medicare Scrutiny
'We do not think the state of kidney disease care is acceptable'
"Medicare needs to change the way it pays for kidney disease treatment in order to get better results, Adam Boehler, director of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation, said here.
"We do not think the state of kidney care is acceptable," Boehler said Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. "Right now, we're at a place where 10% of patients in Medicare [with kidney disease] are seen at home, while you have Hong Kong, with a 70% rate. That's not OK. The level of transplants is not OK."
"What happens is that end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is siphoned out and [effort is] focused there, instead of viewing the whole spectrum, instead of thinking about chronic kidney disease before ranging from diagnosing it in the first place, to integration of later-stage chronic kidney disease, to ESRD," he said. "Because what you really want is the prevention of ESRD from developing," he said. "If it develops, you want [it] to be transplant wherever possible; if not, [treatment at] home wherever possible, and it should be a last resort that people go to a dialysis center."
...
"Boehler said he wasn't trying to demonize dialysis centers. "It's our fault; we set the incentives," he said, referring to Medicare. "You need to change those incentives. If we want people to do what's best for patients, if we want them to lower costs and improve quality for patients, they need to make money for doing that -- we'll look specialty by specialty to set it up like that."
"Medicare spends about $120 billion a year on kidney care, Boehler noted. "The first thing you may think about in ESRD is dialysis centers ... but that is not the majority of spend. The majority of spend is in other places -- hospitals, complications arising from them, et cetera. That doesn't mean we have to cut the spend there; it means you have to change around the way people make money." Right now, he said, for the dialysis centers, "if somebody gets a transplant, that's a lost customer."
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