The last thing that folks living with End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) should have to worry about is whether they can afford to pay for their treatments. As someone who has been on dialysis since 2009, I’ve met a number of patients who live with a financial burden and uncertainty because they do not have access to Medigap insurance. Thankfully, Congress is working to expand Medigap coverage through a new bill called the Jack Reynolds Memorial Medigap Expansion Act. This bill would allow patients under the age of 65 to gain access to Medigap coverage, and it would be a huge [...]

My kidney disease diagnosis four years ago meant a lot of things, including the beginning of many doctor appointments, dialysis treatments, and medications. While these changes keep me alive and well, there are certain areas of care for dialysis patients that are lacking. For starters, I have found myself navigating between doctors to communicate my needs and make sure all of my prescriptions are working together, especially when I first started dialysis. Patients need a coordinated care system to make it easier for their doctors to communicate their prescribed health plans. Dialysis patients also require frequent visits to centers for their treatments. [...]

A kidney disease diagnosis is life-changing. It means undergoing hours-long dialysis treatments several times every week, spending more time at doctors' appointments, and completely overhauling how patients live their lives. The stress of that change is only complicated by the fact that for a lot of dialysis patients, the responsibility for tracking treatments, medications and communicating with their nephrologist and primary care doctor and any number of other care providers so that treatments do not overlap or interfere with each other. Sen. Todd Young has introduced a bill called the BETTER Kidney Care Act, which would make it easier for [...]

Being a nurse practitioner gives me a glimpse into patients’ daily struggles that aren’t always obvious from the outside looking in, like the problems patients face when their coverage suddenly changes, and they can’t afford the medications they need. This is something I’ve particularly noticed for dialysis patients. Since a lot of them rely on Medicare for coverage, they have large out-of-pocket expenses when it doesn’t cover something they need, like actual dialysis treatments (which patients usually need three to four times a week) and medications, since Medicare often only covers 80% of those costs. And since many don’t have [...]

Dialysis has involved a lot of waiting since I started it years ago. Treatments take hours at a time, and I’m left waiting for the call to finally tell me that a donor kidney is ready. It simply cannot come soon enough. However, I at least have coverage for my treatments through my wife’s job, in addition to Medicare, which I know is not the case for others. For them, treatments that aren’t covered by Medicare have to be paid out of pocket, and the added costs and stress can be overwhelming. We need lawmakers to support the Jack Reynolds Memorial [...]