***Get the lowdown on your clinic!***
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Dialysis Facility Tracker
Updated Dec. 22, 2010
By Robin Fields, Al Shaw, and Jennifer LaFleur, ProPublica, Dec. 22, 2010
This site is for dialysis patients and others who want to learn about the quality of care at individual dialysis clinics. Among other things, you can learn how often patients treated at a facility have been hospitalized, report certain types of infections or are placed on the transplant list. The information is submitted by facilities and collected by contractors of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, the federal agency that oversees most dialysis care.
Related story: Dialysis Data, Once Confidential, Shines Light on Clinic Disparities »
***The Strangest Show on Earth!***
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Denver-based health-care mogul Kent Thiry runs DaVita, his multibillion-dollar kidney dialysis company, unlike anything the buttoned-down corporate world has ever seen. Are his carnival-like theatrics a stroke of genius, or are they designed to distract people from the hard truths about his business?
***NonProfit vs. for-profit***
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New Study Shows Higher Mortality Risk at For-Profit Dialysis Chains
by Robin Fields
ProPublica, Dec. 9, 2010, 2:03 p.m.
5:01 p.m.: This post has been updated.
Patients treated at dialysis clinics run by the largest U.S. for-profit chains have a higher risk of death than patients treated by the biggest nonprofit chain, a study released today in the journal Health Services Research concludes.
The outcome gaps are substantial: Patients at the largest for-profit chain were found to have a 19 percent higher risk of death than patients receiving care at the nonprofit; at the second-largest chain, the risk was 24 percent higher.
***Kidney Dialysis - a troubled industry***
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In Dialysis, Life-Saving Care at Great Risk and Cost
by Robin Fields
ProPublica, Nov. 9, 2010
In 1972, after a month of deliberation, Congress launched the nation's most ambitious experiment in universal health care: a change to the Social Security Act that granted comprehensive coverage under Medicare to virtually anyone diagnosed with kidney failure, regardless of age or income.
It was a supremely hopeful moment. Although the technology to keep kidney patients alive through dialysis had arrived, it was still unattainable for all but a lucky few. At one hospital, a death panel -- or "God committee" in the parlance of the time -- was deciding who got it and who didn't. The new program would help about 11,000 Americans, just for starters. For a modest initial price tag of $135 million, it would cover not only their dialysis and transplants, but all of their medical needs. Some consider it the closest that the United States has come to socialized medicine.
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