Government Healthcare Policy, Business and Technology

CMS boosts spending estimate for kidney failure patients

Modern Healthcare: The CMS will be paying dialysis centers 10 times more than previously stated after the agency found it underestimated the number of acute kidney injury patients that will now be getting care at dialysis centers instead of hospitals.

Dialysis centers only started receiving Medicare reimbursement for kidney injury patients in January. Previously, the patients were usually treated in acute-care settings. The CMS said at the time it wanted to give patients the option to be treated in their communities as well.

The agency initially estimated that few of these patients would go to dialysis centers in 2018, and it would only spend $2 million on acute kidney injury patients receiving care at the facilities.

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