Travel to foreign country while on PD

I will be starting PD soon (within a year) and have some questions regarding PD and travel. I understand that a more liberal diet and lifestyle is a benefit to PD. I spend several months a year in Mexico and wondered if PD supplies are shipped internationally for such cases. Has anyone had any experience with this? Thanks.

Good news, Raeernisse: PD is much more common in Mexico than HD. Baxter and Fresenius (the two companies that make PD supplies) both ship to Mexico. It’s always wise to talk to your PD training nurse about the details, but you should have no trouble doing PD when you travel to Mexico. :slight_smile:

Be sure you know if your insurance will cover PD when performed outside the U.S. Medicare doesn’t cover treatment performed in a clinic outside the U.S. I’ve known PD patients who traveled for a week or two outside the U.S. Some go on cruises that leave from a U.S. port where their supplies have been delivered by Baxter or Fresenius. The home clinic may have billed Medicare as if the patient was doing dialysis in the U.S.

If the clinic you go to uses Baxter supplies, check this out. http://www.livenow.info/currenthomepatients/Global_Destinations.html#

Here’s information from Fresenius about traveling. It seems to focus more on HD, but you could ask the Fresenius Kidney Care Patient Travel Services team about PD. Their number is 1-866-434-2597 (option 1) and they’re there Monday – Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET.
https://www.freseniuskidneycare.com/thriving-on-dialysis/traveling

Hello everyone, I’m new here and my mother needs treatments 2.5%. My mother comes to visit for a few weeks and I’m in need of your help. We are in the southwest region of Ohio. Her insurance will not cover her treatment while on vacation. Thanks a million!

If your mother’s home dialysis clinic is in the U.S., U.S. clinics provide equipment and all supplies needed by PD patients to use in their homes and when traveling within the U.S. When patients take short trips, they may be able to take supplies with them. When traveling for several weeks, the patient can ask his/her dialysis manufacturer (for PD this is Fresenius or Baxter) to ship supplies to the U.S. destination where the patient is doing dialysis.

Have you or your mother talked with the home dialysis clinic’s financial counselor or social worker about getting dialysis supplies while traveling? In my experience working as a social worker in three different dialysis clinics, home dialysis clinics bill the home dialysis patient’s insurance as usual. When a patient does dialysis in a clinic, insurance may not pay if the clinic is out-of-network or if a Medicaid patient is getting in-center dialysis out-of-state.