For your business, adapting to End-Stage Renal Disease trends starts with home

Whether you run a dialysis facility or a nephrology practice, home dialysis therapies provide efficiencies without sacrificing patient care. Home is an effective way to expand the capacity of your center or practice to prepare for the increasing incidents rates of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD).


Establishing and sustaining a home dialysis program can seem time consuming, but Baxter’s experienced team is ready to help.

What home therapies offer nephrology practices

Operationally, a home dialysis program allows nephrologists to balance their time between attending to their CKD patients and visiting their dialysis patients. Home therapy also supports high-quality patient visits; Peritoneal Dialysis (PD) patients typically have just one visit per month, allowing doctor and patient to have a dedicated, one-on-one appointment. Read more on the Operations page.

Financially, home therapies have become more viable because Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) now reimburses nephrologists for patient education and training.¹ Changes that CMS has made to support home therapies are discussed at greater length in the Reimbursement section.

What home therapies offer dialysis facilities

Operationally, a home dialysis program allows clinics to overcome chair capacity limits. PD reduces the cost and time associated with expanding Hemodialysis chair capacity, and staff resources go further when a home program is in place. Read more on the Operations page.

Financially, a smaller investment and fewer resources are generally required for PD. Medicare reimbursement for PD and In-center Hemodialysis has been adjusted so that the base rates are equal,² and PD generally requires fewer resources³. In addition, the reimbursement rate for training has increased for clinics adopting the full bundle on January 1, 2011.² Changes that CMS has made to support home dialysis therapies are discussed at greater length in the Reimbursement section.

1 Rule Citation: Medicare Program; Payment Policies Under the Physician Fee Schedule and Other Revisions to Part B for Calendar Year (CY) 2010.Proposed Rule: CMS-1413-P. Released July 2009:1043; Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
² Department of Health and Human Services: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services 42 CFR Part 410, 413 and 414 [CMS-1418-F] RIN 0938-AP57 Medicare Program; End-Stage Renal Disease Prospective Payment System.
³ USRDS 2009 Annual Data Report: Atlas of End-Stage Renal Disease in the United States, Vol. 2, 2009; 174-417, U.S. Renal Data System.