Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar this week highlighted the agency’s goals for promoting prevention, value-based care and transplant opportunities for beneficiaries with kidney disease. “Today, Medicare covers most patients with kidney failure,” Azar said in remarks to the National Kidney Foundation. “But we don’t begin spending a great deal on these patients until they’re already sick. It is the epitome of a system that pays for sickness rather than health, and this administration is intent on shifting those priorities.” Noting that 88 percent of Americans with end-stage renal disease start treatment with center-based dialysis rather than at home with hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis, he said, “Improving this situation dramatically, as we ought to do, will mean examining the payment incentives in our programs today, while expanding access to new technologies.” Azar said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Innovation Center “is now looking hard at new models for patients not just with ESRD, but also stage 4 and 5 kidney disease.” He said the agency also is looking to incentivize dialysis providers “to get patients off dialysis through transplants.”

Related News Articles

Headline
The AHA released an infographic Feb. 13 highlighting the many ways hospitals and health systems advance health and support their communities. In 2023, U.S.…
Headline
The Central Nevada Health District yesterday announced the state's first case of H5N1 bird flu, a dairy farm worker who was exposed to infected cattle. The…
Chairperson's File
Edelman recently released its 2025 Trust Barometer titled “Trust and the Crisis of Grievance,” and it couldn’t be more timely. Trust — in one another, our…
Headline
A case study by the AHA's Community Health Improvement network explains how Providence Health and Services took a data-driven, measurement-based approach to…
Headline
A case study by the AHA's Community Health Improvement network highlights how Renown Health in Reno, Nev., used its community health assessment to address…
Headline
The Common Health Coalition today announced it has extended the deadline to Feb. 3 to apply for the Common Health Challenge Catalyst Award program grant. Each…