Study: Racial gaps in home dialysis persist despite Medicare intervention

By Shawn M. Carter
Racial gaps in home dialysis treatment still exist among patients with kidney disease, even after Medicare introduced a new payment structure to alleviate critical barriers to care, according to results of a recently published study. Congress approved the Medicare End-Stage Renal Disease prospective payment system (PPS) in 2011 to control costs and increase access to home peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis (HHD). But despite modest increases seen in dialysis availability and patient utilization following the reform, “significant racial disparities in home dialysis remain,” Virginia Wang, PhD, faculty at the Duke University School of Medicine and lead research author, wrote in the study. Read the full story in Healio.