Healthmap Blog

It’s National Heart Month….So Why are We Talking About the Kidneys?

February is American Heart Month and this year the focus is on hypertension, often referred to as high blood pressure. In the U.S., 30.3 million American adults have been diagnosed with heart disease , the leading cause of death in our country—and across the world, for men and women of all races. One of the major risk factors for developing heart disease is hypertension, a condition that affects 33.2%, of Americans aged 20+, and only one in four have the condition under control.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Announces End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Treatment Choices (ETC) Model

On September 18, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it had “finalized the End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Treatment Choices (ETC) Model, to improve or maintain the quality of care and reduce Medicare expenditures for patients with chronic kidney disease. The ETC Model delivers on the Executive Order, “Advancing American Kidney Health” and encourages an increased use of home dialysis and kidney transplants to help improve the quality of life of Medicare beneficiaries with ESRD. The ETC Model will impact approximately 30 percent of kidney care providers and will be implemented on January 1, 2021 at an estimated savings of $23 million over five and a half years”.