Congress is proposing cuts to Medicare's End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) benefit, which pays for care for more than 300,000 Medicare beneficiaries with kidney failure and dialysis care. These cuts have been proposed despite a formal recommendation to Congress by the non-partisan Medicare Payment Advisory Committee (MedPAC) to account for inflationary adjustments in Medicare's payment for ESRD care. These adjustments would account for normal increases in labor costs, some patient services and medication-related supplies. Further, the proposed cuts ignore the strong and growing congressional support for the Kidney Care Quality & Education Act (H.R. 1193), introduced by Representatives John Lewis (D-GA) and David Camp (R-MI), which establishes a three-year continuous quality improvement initiative to reward quality, provides an inflationary adjustment for three years tied to clinical performance, and initiates a robust patient education and disease prevention program. Currently, the bill has more than 100 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives.
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http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...4633411&EDATE=
07-27-2007, 10:22 AM
