The Nephrology Interdisciplinary Team: An Education Synergism

Patients with kidney disease often have a poor understanding of their condition. The interdisciplinary team can effectively educate these patients to slow disease progression and enhance self-management. The kidney community needs large, well-designed studies to determine the best way to educate patients and hopefully stem the tide of a rapidly increasing population of kidney patients. Congress authorized payment to eligible providers for kidney disease education for Medicare beneficiaries. However, this benefit is not being optimally used. In addition, reimbursement denials were 14-17% in 2011 and 20-23% in 2012. This is more than 4 times the usual Medicare denial rate for current procedural terminology (CPT) codes.