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ABOUT MEDICARE: Medicare covers kidney disease - Times-Standard |
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A diagnosis of kidney failure could be a real shock. And it's becoming more common as the number of Americans with diabetes and high blood pressure grows. But even with this serious diagnosis you can survive and move on.
Medicare can help. The program helps pay for kidney dialysis as well as kidney transplants.
Chronic kidney disease is a serious health problem in the United States. In 2010, more than 20 million Americans aged 20 and older had this disease.
And in 2008, nearly 550,000 Americans were getting treated for end-stage renal disease, or ESRD, which is permanent kidney failure.
Most people have to be at least 65 years old to get Medicare. But people with ESRD can get Medicare at any age. Even children with ESRD can enroll in Medicare.
ESRD is treated by dialysis, a process which cleans your blood when your kidneys don't work. It gets rid of harmful waste, extra salt and fluids that build up in your body. It also helps control blood pressure and helps your body keep the right amount of fluids.
Dialysis treatments help you feel better and live longer -- but they aren't a cure for permanent kidney failure.
Medicare covers a number of things related to dialysis.
If you're admitted to a hospital for special care, Medicare covers inpatient dialysis treatments under Part A, which is hospital insurance.
Medicare Part B covers outpatient dialysis treatments and doctors' fees for outpatient care.
Part B also pays for
self-dialysis training, which includes instruction for you and the person helping you with your home dialysis treatments.
And Part B covers home dialysis equipment and supplies -- like the machine and water treatment system -- as well as most drugs for home dialysis.
How much would you have to pay for dialysis in a Medicare-certified facility? If you have Original Medicare, you'd pay 20 percent of the Medicare-approved amount for all covered services.
Medicare pays the other 80 percent.
Dialysis and kidney transplants are paid through Original Medicare.
In most cases, you can't join a Medicare Advantage plan if you have end-stage renal disease.
Keep in mind that dialysis can be done in your own home or in a Medicare-certified facility.
Ask your kidney doctor what facility he or she works with. Or you can look for a facility on Medicare's “Dialysis Facility Compare” website.
It's located at www.medi
care.gov/dialysis.
The website has important information such as addresses and phone numbers, how far certain facilities are from you, and what kind of dialysis services the facilities offer.
You also can compare facilities by certain quality-of-care information.
If you don't have a computer, you can call us, toll-free, at 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).
Medicare Part A also helps pay for hospital inpatient services if you need a kidney transplant.
Medicare will help cover the costs of finding the proper kidney for your transplant, and the full cost of care for your kidney donor.
For more details on transplants, please consult our pamphlet, “Medicare Coverage of Kidney Dialysis & Kidney Transplant Services” (CMS Product No. 10128).
It's available online or by calling 1-800-MEDICARE.
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David Sayen is Medicare's regional administrator for California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, and the Pacific Trust Territories. You can get answers to your Medicare questions by calling 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227).
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Significant Promise of Targeted Hypertension Treatment Using ... - Newswise (press release) |
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Significant Promise of Targeted Hypertension Treatment Using PeriVascular Renal Denervation (PVRD™)
Newswise — KALAMAZOO, Mich., June 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Ablative Solutions, Inc. (ASI), a privately-held company headquartered in Kalamazoo, MI with offices in Menlo Park, CA announced today that it has completed a Series A Preferred Stock financing, totaling approximately $5.3 million (including the conversion of the bridge financing completed earlier this year), to fund its unique technology platform. The round was led by BioStar Ventures and the Michigan Accelerator Fund, and included participation by multiple angel investors. Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP served as legal advisor to ASI for the transaction.
ASI is developing a significantly different approach to Renal Denervation, a new therapy that addresses hypertension and other diseases related to overactive sympathetic nerve activity. The sympathetic nerves that run along the renal artery play an essential role in controlling blood pressure but, when overactive, contribute to hypertension. Renal Denervation has been demonstrated to reduce blood pressure in patients who are not effectively treated by medical therapy. De-activating these nerves modulates the signaling process, and helps to reduce blood pressure. Unlike other approaches to Renal Denervation, which deliver destructive energy through the entire renal artery wall, ASI has developed a unique device that targets treatment directly to the nerves that encircle the renal artery, without damaging the artery wall — a solution that ASI calls PeriVascular Renal Denervation (PVRD™).
"Hypertension has an extraordinary impact on health, but it is a disease that is underappreciated. There is good reason for the excitement surrounding Renal Denervation – it produces a persistent, durable reduction in blood pressure with a minimally invasive procedure," observed Dr. Tim Fischell, CEO and CMO of ASI. "ASI seeks not only to simplify and streamline the denervation procedure, but, more importantly, to do so without damaging the vessel wall, by delivering the therapy directly to where the sympathetic nerves reside, just outside the blood vessel."
"We believe that ASI's simple, elegant approach will address the clinical need effectively," stated Dr. Vartan Ghazarossian, President and COO of ASI. "Our technology development is driven by the awareness that less is more — providing optimized ablation of the sympathetic nerve less invasively and with less equipment and a shorter procedure time." The Company projects that its clinical evaluations will begin in 2013.
ASI was founded by two proven medical device entrepreneurs, Tim Fischell, MD and David Fischell, PhD. With executive experience in both biopharmaceutical and medical device companies, Vartan Ghazarossian, PhD, is uniquely positioned to lead the development of ASI's novel device-chemistry-based therapy. Dr. Steven Almany of BioStar Ventures, a member of ASI's Board of Directors, commented: "The therapeutic potential of perivascular renal denervation is very attractive, and we are very pleased to invest in ASI's team as they develop their unique approach."
This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities in this offering. There will not be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offering, sale or solicitation would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains certain "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Information in this press release, which is not historical, is forward-looking and involves a number of risks and uncertainties. Investors are cautioned not to put any undue reliance on any forward-looking statement. ASI's actual results may differ materially from ASI's historical results of operations and those discussed in the forward-looking statements for various reasons, including, but not limited to ASI's ability to carry out its business plan, successful development and commercial acceptance of its products, ability to fund development necessary for existing products and for the pursuit of new product opportunities, ability to hire required personnel, the risk of whether products result from development activities, protection of ASI's intellectual property portfolio, the risk associated with obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals, the ability to obtain foreign regulatory approvals for products and to establish marketing arrangements in countries where approval is obtained, and other potential factors.
http://www.ablativesolutions.com
http://www.biostarventures.com
http://www.maf-1.com
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Two-fold increase in hospitalizations for children with high blood ... - Fox News |
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The number of children hospitalized for high blood pressure has increased dramatically over the past decade – almost doubling from 12,661 in 1997 to 24,602 in 2006.
After calculating discharge records from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Kids’ Inpatient Database, researchers also discovered the rise in hypertension-related hospitalizations has led to a 50 percent increase in costs for inpatient care – reaching approximately $3.1 billion.
The study, published in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension, stemmed from the equally dramatic increase in hypertension being seen in adults in the U.S.
“Looking through the research, there’s definitely a lot of published reports looking at the frequency of hypertension in outpatient settings, but there’s not a lot of inpatient data, especially in pediatrics,” Dr. Cheryl Tran, a fellow in the Department of Pediatric Nephrology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and the study’s lead author, told FoxNews.com. “Numerous studies have examined the adult population, so given that trend in hypertension, we want to see how that translated over to the inpatient landscape.”
Along with discovering the increase in hospitalizations and economic costs, Tran and her team also found that the average length of stay for children with hypertension was twice as long as stays for children with other illnesses – typically lasting eight days compared to four. The most common diagnoses for hospitalized children included pneumonia, acute appendicitis and asthma.
While the scientists only focused on discharge data, they could not account for the exact rise in hypertension among children. However, they did speculate that obesity and nutrition played a key role in their findings.
“We hypothesized that the rise of hypertension may be in part to obesity,” Tran said. “We looked at both primary diagnoses and secondary diagnoses, in order to account for everyone that might have been treated for this particular disorder. When hypertension was the primary diagnosis, obesity was one of the top second most common diagnoses.”
If high blood pressure was only a secondary diagnosis, children often were first diagnosed with lupus, complications due to kidney transplants, pneumonia and acute proliferative glomerulonephritis – inflammation in the kidney that can cause hypertension.
With such staggering statistics, Tran advocated for preventative health education for parents. Not only are the economic consequences high, she said, but children could suffer later in life if their hypertension is not addressed quickly.
“It’s important that the health care community and families are addressing healthy lifestyle habits,” Tran said. “That they’re working together to identify children with hypertension early on. They need to be cognizant of their [children’s] growth percentiles and their blood pressures. That’s the first step to preventing this condition.”
“It’s important because children with high blood pressure are at risk for high blood pressure in adulthood,” Tran added, “and the complications of that are large.”
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Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Announces Live Webcast of Upcoming ... - MarketWatch (press release) |
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NEW YORK, June 19, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.
/quotes/zigman/83561/quotes/nls/kerx KERX
+1.15%
today announced that its upcoming Analyst Day will be webcast live on Thursday, June 21, 2012 at 4:30 pm ET. Scheduled speakers include:
Julia Lewis, M.D., will provide her perspective on the Zerenex (ferric citrate) Phase 3 clinical program and the potential Zerenex product profile.-- Professor of Medicine, Division of Nephrology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Geoffrey Block, M.D., will discuss the potential for Zerenex in pre-dialysis.-- Director of Research, Denver Nephrology and Associate Clinical Professor in Medicine, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
David Goldfarb, M.D., will discuss the potential importance of citrate.-- Chief, Nephrology Division, NY Campus of NY Harbor Health Care Veterans Affairs System and Professor of Medicine & Physiology, NYU School of Medicine.
To access the live audio webcast, please visit the Company's Investor Relations section of their website (
http://investors.keryx.com ). An archived version of the webcast will become available following the conclusion of the live presentation.
About Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.
Keryx Biopharmaceuticals is focused on the acquisition, development and commercialization of medically important pharmaceutical products for the treatment of renal disease. Keryx is developing Zerenex (ferric citrate), an oral, ferric iron-based compound that has the capacity to bind to phosphate and form non-absorbable complexes. The Phase 3 clinical program of Zerenex for the treatment of hyperphosphatemia (elevated phosphate levels) in patients with end-stage renal disease is being conducted pursuant to a Special Protocol Assessment (SPA) agreement with the FDA. Keryx is headquartered in New York City.
KERYX CONTACT:Lauren FischerDirector - Investor RelationsKeryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.Tel: 212.531.5965E-mail:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
SOURCE Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.
Copyright (C) 2012 PR Newswire. All rights reserved
/quotes/zigman/83561/quotes/nls/kerx
US
: U.S.: Nasdaq
$
1.76
+0.02
+1.15%
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Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Announces Live Webcast of Upcoming Analyst Day - MarketWatch (press release) |
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NEW YORK, June 19, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.
/quotes/zigman/83561/quotes/nls/kerx KERX
+0.56%
today announced that its upcoming Analyst Day will be webcast live on Thursday, June 21, 2012 at 4:30 pm ET. Scheduled speakers include:
Julia Lewis, M.D., will provide her perspective on the Zerenex (ferric citrate) Phase 3 clinical program and the potential Zerenex product profile.-- Professor of Medicine, Division of Nephrology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Geoffrey Block, M.D., will discuss the potential for Zerenex in pre-dialysis.-- Director of Research, Denver Nephrology and Associate Clinical Professor in Medicine, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center.
David Goldfarb, M.D., will discuss the potential importance of citrate.-- Chief, Nephrology Division, NY Campus of NY Harbor Health Care Veterans Affairs System and Professor of Medicine & Physiology, NYU School of Medicine.
To access the live audio webcast, please visit the Company's Investor Relations section of their website (
http://investors.keryx.com ). An archived version of the webcast will become available following the conclusion of the live presentation.
About Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.
Keryx Biopharmaceuticals is focused on the acquisition, development and commercialization of medically important pharmaceutical products for the treatment of renal disease. Keryx is developing Zerenex (ferric citrate), an oral, ferric iron-based compound that has the capacity to bind to phosphate and form non-absorbable complexes. The Phase 3 clinical program of Zerenex for the treatment of hyperphosphatemia (elevated phosphate levels) in patients with end-stage renal disease is being conducted pursuant to a Special Protocol Assessment (SPA) agreement with the FDA. Keryx is headquartered in New York City.
KERYX CONTACT:Lauren FischerDirector - Investor RelationsKeryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.Tel: 212.531.5965E-mail:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
SOURCE Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.
Copyright (C) 2012 PR Newswire. All rights reserved
/quotes/zigman/83561/quotes/nls/kerx
US
: U.S.: Nasdaq
$
1.80
+0.01
+0.56%
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