
Shift Your Perspective on Home Dialysis
- Improved clinical outcomes
- Higher quality of life
- Lower healthcare costs
A growing number of physicians, patients and payors agree: Home dialysis is the option of 1st choice whenever possible.
In a recent survey including over 500 dialysis facility medical directors, 68 percent of all respondents chose home dialysis when asked to vote for their initial treatment modality of choice if they were personally to need dialysis.1
The advantages of performing dialysis at home are compelling
As the number of people on dialysis increases every year, and as the financial burden on our healthcare system continues to grow, home dialysis offers a new paradigm for meeting the needs of physicians, patients and payors:
- Physicians want improved outcomes
- Patients want a higher quality of life
- Payors want lower additional costs
Despite evidence suggesting that up to 93 percent of incident patients do not have any medical contraindications for home dialysis, less than 8 percent of dialysis patients receive care at home.2
Home dialysis improves outcomes
Home dialysis improves quality of life
Home dialysis improves the quality of life (QOL) for patients by eliminating the weekend interval without dialysis and the cycle of trips to and from the clinic. Improvements in QOL begin with the alleviation of multiple symptoms related to a feeling of well-being. Working patients, for example, not only need a treatment plan that accommodates their schedules, but also must feel well enough to do their jobs. Home dialysis reduces multiple symptoms to improve patient functionality.
The number of dialysis patients of working age that are actually working is nearly 30 percent.6

Home dialysis lowers healthcare costs

In addition to improved outcomes and higher quality of life, lower additional patient costs are winning payor support for the “paradigm shift” to home as well.2
Lower hospitalization and transportation costs for home patients are easily recognized by payors as having a cost savings potential. In order to optimize these cost savings, however, they would need to encourage an increase in home dialysis utilization. The cost savings realized from this shift to home dialysis could then be better spent to help balance the budget as the chronic kidney disease population continues to grow.7
As of 2008, Medicare Conditions for Coverage require patient education and participation in choice of modalities.8 These changes and others will help realize the above benefits as more patients choose to dialyze at home.
Visit Fresenius Kidney Care to learn how our services makes home dialysis more convenient.