Kidney Care Partners Supports Trump Administration’s Executive Order on

Kidney Care

Washington, DC, July 10, 2019 --(PR.com)-- Kidney Care Partners - the nation's largest kidney coalition
consisting of patient and patient advocacy groups, researchers and clinicians, providers and manufacturers
- today praised the Trump Administration's announcement to increase focus and investment on the kidney
disease epidemic in America, which affects more than 30 million Americans. The kidney care community
welcomes the increased spotlight on promoting innovations in kidney care and improving patient
outcomes, which provides a unique opportunity for partners in the public and private sectors to
collaborate. KCP has valued its continued work with the White House, HHS and CMS on efforts to
improve the lives of those living with kidney disease. Together, we brought the first value-based program,
the ESRD Quality Incentive Program, to Medicare. Today provides us with another exciting opportunity.

KCP welcomes the increased focus on early education, prevention, choice, and incentivizing innovations
in kidney care, which will ultimately improve patient outcomes. KCP is also pleased that the
Administration's kidney initiative closely aligns with KCP's recently published Kidney Care FIRST (A
Framework for Improving Renal Disease Support & Treatments). Further, KCP has long maintained that
private-public partnerships are needed to ensure that Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) patients receive
optimal care and are able to live quality lives.

KCP supports efforts to:

1. Increase patient modality choice. Their members have worked to remove barriers to accessing home
dialysis, which include establishing the Kidney Disease Education program through which clinicians can
promote modality choices, aligning of home and in-center payment rates to eliminate disincentives for
providing home dialysis, and promoting changes to coverage policies to support home hemodialysis.
2. Develop policies that allow for respite care and other support for caregivers in the home, and for
patients who need to adapt their homes to allow use of home dialysis.
3. Increase organ availability to increase the number of patients who receive a transplant. KCP's
recommendations include incentivizing transplant through performance measurement and standardizing
criteria for waitlist placement to eliminate the selection bias for only those patients most likely to have a
successful outcome.

The U.S. health care system can and should do better helping patients obtain needed kidney transplants
and receive home dialysis. Health care providers at all levels need to understand how to do that in the
context of the diverse and often sicker U.S. population, as opposed to the more homogenous populations
of other nations.

KCP is committed to respect the desires and interest of patients in selecting the modality they believe will
work best for them, as well as working with the Administration to develop an appropriate path that will
move us closer to the aspirational targets the President has referenced today.

KCP looks forward to working with the Administration to address the ongoing social and economic

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barriers to patients choosing home dialysis, as well. While educational efforts and provider-based
incentives are important tools, they are not enough. In our support for greater access to in home dialysis,
it is important to maintain funding for a wide array of safe, affordable, and high-quality patient options
for kidney care as well. In addition, more needs to be done to address shortages in home dialysis supplies
and any steps taken to encourage increased dialysis supplies would also be welcomed. Further, since
many kidney patients suffer from multiple chronic diseases and medical conditions, fostering a climate of
coordinated care is essential.

KCP also stands with the Administration on broad programs including KidneyX to promote additional
research and incentivize innovations in kidney disease. Though rates of kidney disease in America
outpace cancer and heart disease, it currently receives less than 1.88% of government investment research
and innovations by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which equates to less than 1% of cost of care,
according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. However, supporting research is only
the first step. Once the research has produced a promising new therapy, there must be a stable
reimbursement pathway to make sure that patients can access these innovations.

The announcements today serve also as a strong platform for building momentum for the community's
Kidney Care FIRST framework for the future of kidney care. This visionary initiative, designed to
improve patient outcomes and generate significant healthcare savings, addresses the critical areas to
significantly improve the lives of individuals with chronic kidney disease, kidney failure, and kidney
transplants. In tandem with the Administration's support and collaboration, Kidney Care FIRST is slated
to achieve improvements in kidney care nationwide by focusing on five major pillars: awareness and
prevention; patient empowerment; quality and access to quality care; innovation; and, research.

Today's executive order comes as Congress discusses new legislation that will also improve kidney care.
The bipartisan Chronic Kidney Disease Improvement in Research and Treatment Act of 2019 (S.1676),
introduced by Senators Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) and Roy Blunt (R-MO), will help millions of
individuals living with chronic kidney disease and ESRD achieve the quality of life they want and
deserve, if passed.

KCP looks forward to continuing working with the Administration and Congress to put patients first and
thanks them for their leadership in advancing kidney care. Through this collaborative effort, we are
optimistic that kidney patients will live longer, healthier lives - improving patient outcomes and
generating substantial savings for the U.S. healthcare system.

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Contact Information:
Kidney Care Partners
Sarah Ann Rhoades
703-548-0019
Contact via Email
http://www.kidneycarepartners.org/

Online Version of Press Release:

You can read the online version of this press release at: https://www.pr.com/press-release/789449

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