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I Received a Kidney Transplant, but Concerns about Coverage Remain

2024-03-29T01:09:17+00:00June 20th, 2023|Categories: Blog, Medigap Coverage, Patient Ambassadors, Patient's Voice, Private Insurance Coverage|

Ruben Garcia, Webster, Texas After years on dialysis, I was fortunate to receive a kidney transplant. While I am grateful to be off dialysis, its emotional and financial burdens will take years to recover from. When I started dialysis I had no private insurance and was 100% reliant on Medicare. Medicare, however, only covers 80 percent of each treatment. I couldn’t afford to pay out of pocket, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t live without these treatments. Medicare also does not cover all costs of kidney transplants and the medications needed afterward. Going through dialysis while wondering [...]

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Welcome to the Board – Steve Ahern

2024-03-29T01:09:19+00:00December 22nd, 2022|Categories: Blog, Board Members|

Steve has been a dialysis patient for over six years, having battled through heart stents and two bouts of lung cancer. He is honored to be a member of our board, and eager to continue focusing his efforts on making life for dialysis patients as fulfilling as possible. Steve’s battle with kidney disease took many unexpected turns but taught him the importance of perseverance and keeping a positive attitude in difficult times. In 2016 Steve became eligible for a transplant, thinking he’d receive a new kidney within the year. However, he developed lung cancer which made him ineligible for a transplant. [...]

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Protecting Dialysis Patients’ Health Coverage

2024-03-29T01:13:41+00:00January 9th, 2017|Categories: Access to Transplant, Blog, Care Coordination, Charitable Premium Assistance, Legal Defense, Medigap Coverage|Tags: |

By Hrant Jamgochian, CEO Dialysis Patient Citizens Across the country, thousands of patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) face the agonizing choice of paying for necessities such as rent and food, or paying the insurance premiums that enable them to get dialysis and other critical care. Fortunately, ESRD patients have options. Thanks to federal law, they can enroll in Medicare at any age. Or, if they would rather keep a private insurance plan, they can apply for financial help from charities such as the American Kidney Fund. These payments are a lifeline that enables patients to maintain their existing coverage and [...]

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Exciting Changes at DPC

2024-03-29T02:08:58+00:00June 6th, 2013|Categories: Blog, Staff|

By Hrant J., DPC Executive Director With the creation of the DPC Education Center, it became increasingly apparent that Dialysis Patient Citizens (DPC) needed to do some internal realignment of its staff. Our goals for this process were to ensure: 1) we maximize DPC’s limited resources, 2) we secure the sustainability of the DPC Education Center, and 3) we continue to prioritize our advocacy efforts and the work we do to elevate the patient voice with policy makers. As a result, I am pleased to announce that DPC has hired a Government Affairs Director. Since his departure from the Center [...]

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Inside the Intern’s Mind – Goodbye for now!

2024-03-29T02:08:58+00:00May 3rd, 2013|Categories: Blog|

By Megan S., Education Intern I am in my final day here at DPC, and I wanted to post my last blog before I move on. I can’t believe how fast time has flown. It seems surreal that I have spent about 3 months here and that I will be graduating from college in just two weeks. First, I would just like to personally thank my supervisor, Tony, for granting me this amazing opportunity. Your guidance and supervision throughout my experience was more than I could have expected. I want to thank you for the time you spent with me discussing [...]

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Confused About ObamaCare? You are not Alone!

2024-03-29T02:08:58+00:00April 29th, 2013|Categories: Blog, Uncategorized|

By Jessica N., Director of Public Affairs When it comes to the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a ACA or Obamacare), the one thing most people can agree on is its complexity. The bill was long and detailed, and since its passage, thousands of pages of regulations have been released to direct its roll-out. Whether you support the new health care reforms or not, the bill is here to stay and substantial changes are coming to our health care system. If you would like to learn a bit more about the ins-and-outs of ObamaCare, I recently created a webinar entitled “The Affordable [...]

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Inside the Intern’s Mind: Halfway Point

2024-03-29T02:08:58+00:00April 4th, 2013|Categories: Blog|

By Megan S., Education Intern I am a little past my halfway point of interning here at Dialysis Patient Citizens (DPC) and the DPC Education Center (The Center) and so far it has been a great learning environment and experience. Even though I have lived just outside of Washington, D.C. my entire life I was never a frequent visitor of the city and in just a few days here I discovered how drastically different it was from my hometown, Waldorf, MD. For starters, everyone here just moves at a much faster pace. In the mornings after getting off of the Metro [...]

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Update: Dialysis Care Coordination Moves Forward!

2024-03-29T02:08:59+00:00March 19th, 2013|Categories: Blog, Care Coordination, Innovation|

By Jessica N., Director of Public Affairs As I highlighted last fall, DPC has been busy working with other kidney community organizations and the federal government on a new and improved way to provide care to dialysis patients. As part of recent health care reform efforts, Medicare has been developing new ways to coordinate care for various patient groups and they just came out with their dialysis specific program! Medicare, or more specifically the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), released the official blueprint for this new program, which they have called the Comprehensive ESRD Care Initiative. The initiative is [...]

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Congressional Corner: February 2013

2024-03-29T02:08:59+00:00February 20th, 2013|Categories: Blog, Take Action|

By Carrie L. Director of Congressional and State Relations As it has been mentioned in previous blog posts, World Kidney Day is a great opportunity to get out in the community and raise awareness about kidney disease. For us here at the DPC office, this means inviting some of our most active Patient Ambassadors from around the country to join us in the nation’s capital. On World Kidney Day, the Patient Ambassadors will meet with their Members of Congress to talk with them about the policy issues that mean the most to kidney disease patients and to share their stories. [...]

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From the Welcome Desk At DPC: Who Are You Going to Call? Hint Not the Ghostbusters

2024-03-29T02:08:59+00:00February 13th, 2013|Categories: Blog|

By Stephen C., Policy Assistant Hello all! This week I want to talk about something that I’ve been asked about quite a bit. Lots of folks have been calling me to find out how to submit complaints to their dialysis centers. Obviously, we care about patients and want to make sure that they are receiving the best possible care. But when it comes to individual patients at individual centers, we just don’t have the resources to get involved in every case at the local level. If you have a grievance, the first step is fill out a grievance form. Afterwards, talk [...]

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