The DOPPS Practice Monitor reports that hemoglobin levels declined from 2010 to 2011 and rates of red blood cell transfusions increased in response to changes in erythropoietin-stimulating agent labeling, reimbursement policy, and quality incentive payment targets for US dialysis patients. In a presentation at Kidney Week 2012, researchers from the Dialysis Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study will identify changes in anemia management practices.

Please attend this presentation on Saturday, November 3 at 4:42 p.m. as part of the session "Demographics, Economics, and Process of Care: It's Called Hemodialysis." For a full schedule of Arbor Research presentations at Kidney Week, click here. To view data available from the DOPPS Practice Monitor, please click here.

 Comparing the First Two Years of the CMS ESRD Quality Incentive Program (QIP)

Dialysis facilities across the United States now know how they fared in the second year of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services End-Stage Renal Disease Quality Incentive Program (CMS ESRD QIP). The team at Arbor Research compared the results of the first year of the CMS ESRD QIP with results in the second year to better understand trends in facility performance and payment reductions. While we found that fewer facilities may be subject to payment reductions, approximately half of facilities that face payment reductions in the second year also faced payment reductions in the first year of the CMS ESRD QIP. Monitoring trends as the CMS ESRD QIP evolves year to year will allow for the detection of potential lagged and cumulative effects of Medicare's first value-based purchasing policy.

Please view the poster presentation of this research on Thursday, November 1. For a full schedule of Arbor Research presentations at Kidney Week, click here. To learn more about our work on the CMS ESRD QIP, please click here.