Bloomberg
November 24, 2010, 4:08 PM EST
By Pat Wechsler
Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- A study concluding kidney patients can improve their health by undergoing twice as many dialysis sessions may prompt the U.S. government to reconsider Medicare rules restricting payments to DaVita Inc. and other providers.
Medicare, the health insurance program for senior citizens and the disabled, covers three sessions weekly unless more are shown to be medically necessary. An increase to six treatments may raise costs and require the dialysis industry to expand, said Alan Kliger, a clinical professor of medicine at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and a study coauthor.
About 400,000 Americans undergo dialysis, a procedure using chemicals to remove toxic waste from the bodies of patients whose kidneys aren
