By Peter Laird, MD
Each month, Kaiser sends an explanation of benefits for my dialysis services. I see my dialysis team once a month, I do all of my inventory ordering, I perform all of my own medical treatments and I draw my own labs. My wife often wonders why she doesn't get paid to be my assistant since "we do all of the work." Her question is even more pointed when we saw
the bill to Kaiser for August 2012 in the amount of $72,490.40. (this is ONE MONTH'S bill, see annual costs: http://dialysisethics2.org/open_images/Costs%20and%20deaths.jpg
In Australia and other nations, patients are given financial incentives to perform dialysis at home since it saves the health system tens of thousands of dollars every year. I am sure that is a non-starter politically here in America, but where can a dialysis provider supervising home hemodialysis patients only on a monthly basis have the audacity to generate such an outrageous bill?
Indeed, my entire annual cost of dialysis and related medical costs is well below $72,000 each year.
At the same time,
DaVita denies me enough supplies to last that one month period with one box of masks, 50 in each, which is less than needed for both my wife and I. One box of alcohol pads likewise fails to cover my monthly needs. They further provide my dialysis needles on a one month basis compromising their integrity since they are not shipped in their original packaging of a box of 100. Did they use gloves and wash their hands before they placed them in a cardboard box not intended for this purpose and then shipped it to me through the mail system? Does this compromise my clean supply table every day as I attend my dialysis set up diligently in accordance to rules of sanitation?
Needless to say, Kaiser does not pay that bill in entirety due to contractual agreement. Yet for some health care providers, they do not have the ability to deny all of these claims which would total over $800,000.00 for a year of home hemodialysis treatment. With Kent Thiry publicly stating in a recent presentation that the business of DaVita is not about the patients, their greed and profiteering is evident each and every month when I obtain my explanation of benefits.
I understand that it is not about the patient each and every day that I fax my daily dialysis flow sheet so that the nurses at my unit can enter it into the DaVita billing system. Yes, DaVita is the king of dialysis billing. My impression of their entire system is that it is geared to billing much more so than to patient care. After all, Kent is right, it is not about the patient. That is the DaVita difference.
http://www.hemodoc.com/2012/09/the-davita-difference-the-billing-king.html
