Absent action by Congress, Americans suffering from kidney failure will lose access to critical medicine beginning January 1, 2025.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 6, 2024) – The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee met Wednesday to markup the Kidney Patient Access Technologically Innovative and Essential Nephrology Treatments Act of 2023 or the ‘‘Kidney PATIENT Act” (H.R. 5074).
The Kidney PATIENT Act would instruct the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to delay adding Phosphate Lowering Therapies (PLTs) to the End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) payment bundle until 2033 or until the Food and Drug Administration approves an intravenous treatment for lowering phosphate. Patients currently have access to these drugs under Medicare Part D, but that would change under tbe CMS plan to add PLTs to the ESRD payment bundle by January 1, 2025.
After amending the original bill language to include a two-year delay and require a study, committee members overwhelmingly voted, 41-1, to favorably report the legislation to the U.S. House of Representatives.