Need answers lost insurance

Today has not been a good day my wife who carries our insurance was told she is now to work 5 hours a day and our insurance is terminated!!! all this after 20 years of employment!! I just had my catheter in on monday and start training in a couple of weeks I have no idea where to turn for help This will totaly bankrupt us and comprimise treatment Thanks for any input

Greg

Hi Greg,

I’m so sorry to hear about your wife’s loss of insurance–IMHO, the U.S. “system” of paying for medical care is flat-out ridiculous. That said, please don’t panic. Having kidney failure means that you are eligible for Medicare even if you are not over age 65 or disabled. (Unfortunately, this does not apply to your wife–but if she does not have a chronic disease, it will be easier for her to find an individual policy than it would be for you).

The Medicare End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) program will pay 80% of the allowable rate for dialysis, including PD. AND, because you will be training to do a home treatment, Medicare will start paying right away (if you did hemodialysis in a center, Medicare would not kick in until the first day of your 3rd full month of treatment). Depending on the timing, even your catheter surgery can be covered by Medicare. I’ll leave that to Beth to explain.

Sound complicated? It is. There’s a free booklet about paying for dialysis that you can download from our Life Options website. It’s at: http://www.lifeoptions.org/catalog/pdfs/booklets/employment.pdf.

If you are working, I hope you plan to continue.