Jim Hillibish — Medicare ends long haul for home-hemo machines

Jim Hillibish — Medicare ends long haul for home-hemo machines

By Jim Hillibish
CantonRep.com staff writer
Posted Jan 15, 2011 @ 01:00 PM

It was fun while it lasted, my 15 minutes of fame.

I was one of the first patients in Ohio on a revolutionary home-hemodialysis system. That made me a poster boy, especially after I wrote about it.

TV stations called, New York talk radio called, NBC called, magazine freelancers called, then the New York Times called. I talked blue about it, even to nursing classes. Then Ohio Department of Health sent observers to our house, clipboards in hand. I started thinking about hiring an agent.

Glad I didn’t. The machine after six years is nearing household-appliance status.

It’s to the point where even Medicare is taking note. The miracle has become so ho- hum that the Associated Press is writing about it.

Ho-hum isn’t bad, but I could use a little excitement around here.

LONG WAIT

It wasn’t always that way. It took 14 months to get the first home-hemo box. Convincing Aultman Hospital was easy. They quickly realized this puppy was the future. They were glad they had a guinea pig — me.

But wait, we needed a critical code number to start, the Medicare payment trigger. Enter months of agonized waiting.

Medicare obviously is too busy to get things done. New tech drives old health-o-crats nuts. Ignore it, and maybe it will go away.

Aultman’s application gathered cobwebs. The red tape piled higher and higher. Red tape tends to generate more red tape. Soon, we had a tsunami of red tape.

Thirteen months into the mission, everybody in Canton was ready to write it off. Without Medicare, we were going nowhere. (It pays for 80 percent of dialysis.)

Meanwhile, the need for dialysis exploded, mostly due to our diabetes epidemic. Diabetes ruins kidneys along with a lot of other organs. The Aultman Dialysis Center was forced to nearly double its clinic.

HAPPENED SUDDENLY

Then by luck, or perhaps a spy, the hospital discovered its application for home hemo was sitting in the “in” box on a desk, for months. We needed a call to our congressman.

All the rest is so much blood through the home-hemo machine. AP told us Sunday that Medicare now is encouraging home dialysis, even has a rule on it. They are on-board, pushing.

I’m not going to say “I told you so.” Let’s just leave it at zippity do dah. For us dialysis patients, it’s a wonderful day.

http://www.cantonrep.com/life/x1334356370/Jim-Hillibish-Medicare-ends-long-haul-for-home-hemo-machines