Petition For Every Other Day Dialysis

To:  Congressional Kidney Caucus
 
We, the undersigned, ask the Congressional Kidney Caucus to advocate for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to increase the number of routinely reimbursed hemodialysis treatments from three per week (156/year) to every other day (183/year).

We are people on dialysis, care partners, health professionals, family, and friends. Dialysis is not the end of life, but can and should be a new beginning. We believe that so-called “adequate dialysis” (three short treatments per week) merely allows people who need dialysis to hang onto life unproductively--in essence, many are prevented from living the life they were meant to live. This need not be the case! Research has proven that more treatments mean healthier lives, fewer hospitalizations, longer survival, increased productivity, and less overall cost to the healthcare system for people on dialysis.

The U.S has the worst dialysis outcomes of any industrialized nation. Supporting every other day treatments will allow those managing their illness with conventional hemodialysis to avoid the ‘long weekend’ with no treatment—which many studies have shown triples the risk of sudden death from a heart attack. Even this won’t allow the U.S. to catch up; that won’t happen until longer and more frequent treatments are made more widely available. But it’s a start! Please give this vital change your support!

Sincerely,
The Undersigned

Click here to sign the petition. I am #2162.