Health Care Legislation with Bipartisan Support
If you’ve been reading the headlines of late, you’d be forgiven for thinking that bipartisan support for health care legislation is all but impossible. But two bills introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in recent weeks buck that troublesome trend. They already have bipartisan support, and they would make significant improvements to the ability of people with kidney failure, or end-stage renal disease (ESRD), to get life-extending dialysis treatments.
The Medicare Part B Improvement Act of 2017 (H.R. 3178), introduced July 7 by Reps. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the chairman and ranking member of the House Ways & Means Committee, would make progress on two important fronts. First, it would permit health care providers to utilize data from home dialysis equipment to monitor their patients. Many ESRD patients utilize hi-tech equipment to receive dialysis treatment at home, but current law prohibits the valuable data that is captured to be used for the patient’s benefit. Health care providers who serve Medicare patients should be able to access the data to inform a patient’s treatment. This bill would make that possible, promising higher quality care, better outcomes for patients and lower health care costs.
The second key provision of the Medicare Part B Improvement Act would allow dialysis treatment centers to receive Medicare accreditation from approved third parties. Currently, any health care facility that provides care to Medicare beneficiaries must be certified in their state and accredited under Medicare. But dialysis providers are the only facilities that cannot be surveyed or accredited by outside agencies. This prohibition has lengthened the time and increased the costs required for new dialysis facilities to begin serving patients. It also has discouraged new dialysis treatment centers from opening, a particular problem in rural communities where patients may already have limited options for receiving dialysis. H.R. 3178 would streamline the certification and accreditation process, enabling new dialysis providers to begin serving patients faster.
The other bipartisan bill is H.R. 3168, which would ensure that ESRD patients continue to have access to special Medicare plans for patients with chronic diseases such as kidney failure. Introduced by Reps. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio) and Sander Levin (D-MI), who lead the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, the bill would reauthorize Medicare Special Needs Plans for five years, the longest reauthorization since their creation. The bill would also provide ESRD patients with better care coordination, including access to health care specialists who can address their specific needs.
Access to affordable, quality health care can mean the difference between life and death for ESRD patients. Each of these bills will help to improve the care that patients receive and remove barriers that can threaten access. On behalf of ESRD patients nationwide, I want to thank Reps. Brady, Levin, Neal and Tiberi for sponsoring these important pieces of legislation. They deserve strong — and immediate — bipartisan support.
