The Complex Patchwork of Transportation for In-Center Hemodialysis.

Reliable transportation is an important determinant of access to health care and health outcomes that carries particular significance for people with ESKD. In the United States, there are almost half a million patients receiving treatment with in-center dialysis, translating into more than 70 million roundtrips to dialysis centers annually. Difficulty with transportation can interfere with patients' quality of life and contribute to missed or shortened dialysis treatments, increasing their risk for hospitalization. Medicare, the principal payer for dialysis in this country, has not traditionally provided coverage for nonemergency medical transportation, placing the burden of traveling to and from the dialysis center on patients and families and a range of other private and public entities that were not designed and are poorly equipped for this purpose. Here, we review the relationship between access to reliable transportation and health outcomes such as missed and shortened dialysis treatments, hospitalizations, and quality of life. We also describe current approaches to the delivery of transportation for patients receiving in-center hemodialysis, highlighting potential opportunities for improvement.

Calcimimetics and Bundled Reimbursement.

Since 2011, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has provided reimbursement for renal dialysis services furnished to Medicare beneficiaries through a bundled payment system known as the Prospective Payment System. Medications that have no injectable equivalent, known as "oral-only medications," are currently excluded from the bundle and are paid separately through Medicare Part D. Thus, before the development of etelcalcetide, the first injectable calcimimetic, calcimimetics were reimbursed outside the bundle. Etelcalcetide's introduction and approval for use in Medicare triggered a transition payment for a minimum of 2 years that will eventually result in the incorporation of calcimimetics into the dialysis bundle. Consequently, providers may face incentives to reduce calcimimetic use when the transition period has expired. The complexity of bone-mineral management in conjunction with the paucity of evidence-based recommendations in this area makes it difficult to predict the impact of this transition. Because these medications are expensive, a poor transition could have financial ramifications for dialysis organizations and potentially patient health. To ensure that patients are not adversely affected, it is critical that Medicare incorporate these medications into the bundle carefully, with close monitoring of outcomes.

The ESRD Quality Incentive Program-Can We Bridge the Chasm?

The ESRD Quality Incentive Program (QIP) is the first mandatory federal pay for performance program launched on January 1, 2012. The QIP is tied to the ESRD prospective payment system and mandated by the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, which directed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to expand the payment bundle for renal dialysis services and legislated that payment be tied to quality measures. The QIP links 2% of the payment that a dialysis facility receives for Medicare patients on dialysis to the facility's performance on quality of care measures. Quality measures are evaluated annually for inclusion on the basis of importance, validity, and performance gap. Other quality assessment programs overlap with the QIP; all have substantial effects on provision of care as clinicians, patients, regulators, and dialysis organizations scramble to keep up with the frequent release of wide-ranging regulations. In this review, we provide an overview of quality assessment and quality measures, focusing on the ESRD QIP, its effect on care, and its potential future directions. We conclude that a patient-centered, individualized, and parsimonious approach to quality assessment needs to be maintained to allow the nephrology community to further bridge the quality chasm in dialysis care.

Outpatient Dialysis for Patients with AKI: A Policy Approach to Improving Care.

The rate of AKI requiring dialysis has increased significantly over the past decade in the United States. At the same time, survival from AKI seems to be improving, and thus, more patients with AKI are surviving to discharge while still requiring dialysis. Currently, the options for providing outpatient dialysis in patients with AKI are limited, particularly after a 2012 revised interpretation of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services guidelines, which prohibited Medicare reimbursement for acute dialysis at ESRD facilities. This article provides a historical perspective on outpatient dialysis management of patients with AKI, reviews the current clinical landscape of care for these patients, and highlights key areas of knowledge deficit. Lastly, policy changes that have the opportunity to significantly improve the care of this at-risk population are suggested.

Financial and medico-legal implications of late-start dialysis: understanding the present policies through a window of past performance.

In the United States, multiple stakeholders have impacted the timing of dialysis initiation for patients with end-stage renal disease. The optimal policy to start dialysis for this vulnerable population remains unknown. Historically, patients initiated dialysis weeks after the appearance of uremic symptoms. This changed not only due to an evolution in medical providers' practice but also due to changes in the care delivery system, the political imperatives, and the economic driving forces surrounding the care of these patients. One large randomized control trial looked at patient outcomes with strategies of early versus late start. The trial included an economic analysis. Depending on the specific comparison, cost was either lower in the late-start group or was equivalent between groups. This result would tend to favor a late-start strategy, where patients had an additional 6 months of dialysis-free time. However, the generalizability of this analysis has been questioned. Future care models that would include patients before and after dialysis initiation would be ideal to study cost and quality at the time of this transition of care. The recently implemented CMS Quality Incentive Program is one mechanism that could use such findings to implement a high-value strategy for patients starting chronic dialysis therapies.

Comparing mandated health care reforms: the Affordable Care Act, accountable care organizations, and the Medicare ESRD program.

In addition to extending health insurance coverage, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 aims to improve quality of care and contain costs. To this end, the act allowed introduction of bundled payments for a range of services, proposed the creation of accountable care organizations (ACOs), and established the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to test new care delivery and payment models. The ACO program began April 1, 2012, along with demonstration projects for bundled payments for episodes of care in Medicaid. Yet even before many components of the Affordable Care Act are fully in place, the Medicare ESRD Program has instituted legislatively mandated changes for dialysis services that resemble many of these care delivery reform proposals. The ESRD program now operates under a fully bundled, case-mix adjusted prospective payment system and has implemented Medicare's first-ever mandatory pay-for-performance program: the ESRD Quality Incentive Program. As ACOs are developed, they may benefit from the nephrology community's experience with these relatively novel models of health care payment and delivery reform. Nephrologists are in a position to assure that the ACO development will benefit from the ESRD experience. This article reviews the new ESRD payment system and the Quality Incentive Program, comparing and contrasting them with ACOs. Better understanding of similarities and differences between the ESRD program and the ACO program will allow the nephrology community to have a more influential voice in shaping the future of health care delivery in the United States.

Obesity: a problem of darwinian proportions?

Obesity has been described as an abnormality arising from the evolution of man, who becomes fat during the time of perpetual plenty. From the perspective of "Darwinian Medicine," if famine is avoided, obesity will prevail. Problems regarding obesity arise within many disciplines, including socioeconomic environments, the educational system, science, law, and government. This article will discuss various ethical aspects of several disciplines regarding obesity, with a focus on scientific inquiry. We will discuss this within the categories: (1) chronic kidney disease predialysis, (2) dialysis, and (3) renal transplantation. This article aims to help nephrologists and their patients navigate through the ethical aspects of obesity and chronic kidney disease.