Patients can't afford to wait

Patients can't afford to wait
6:00 PM Sun, Sep 20, 2009 |
Letter to the Editor

While many Texans recently witnessed health care town hall meetings filled with angry rhetoric and heated debate, Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchinson and state officials were working quietly and effectively behind the scenes to expand Texans' access to quality dialysis care.
With more than 32,000 Texans suffering from kidney failure and reliant upon dialysis to stay alive, our senators pointed out to Medicare officials and state officials that many local dialysis facilities were facing certification backlog delays of up to 18 months.
These delays cause severe access challenges for Medicare beneficiaries, threaten the economic viability of the facilities themselves and harm the local economies that stand to gain new jobs. Thankfully, the critical certification process has begun on 22 new dialysis facilities across Texas. At the same time, the same rationale that helped initiate the certification process for these 22 facilities is still operative for 38 remaining facilities.
We urge our federal and state officials to keep up the excellent work needed to complete the job and to continue helping expand access to the dialysis care patients need where they need it.
This is a shining example of how government can work to truly help those it serves.
Jess Hall, National Kidney Foundation of Texas, Dallas,
and Kevin Curran, U.S. Renal Care Canton Dialysis, Canton

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/09/patients-cant-a.html