August 17, 2000 - With the current budget surplus, Congress is finally considering increasing the reimbursement to Medicare healthcare providers.

As you may know, Medicare payments for dialysis treatments have been essentially stagnant since 1983. This has forced dialysis centers to constantly seek ways to become more cost-efficient. At this point, nearly everyone agrees that no further productivity gains can be realistically expected.

Legislation is being drafted that would provide dialysis centers with a reimbursement increase and an annual inflation adjustment. This is being called the "Medicare Renal Dialysis Payment Fairness Act of 2000".

However, Congress will not enact this legislation unless it receives sufficient evidence of grass roots support for this increase in federal spending. Therefore, it is very important that everyone writes their Senators and Representative in support of this legislation.

Sample letters are provided here that you can send to your congressional representatives. These are word processing documents that you can edit, save, and print on your own computer.

WORD™ (doc) sample letter to US Senator
Rich text format (rtf) sample letter to US Senator

WORD™ (doc) sample letter to US Representative
Rich text format (rtf) sample letter to US Representative

Click here to access a list of addresses for U.S. Senators and Representatives arranged by state.

It's easy to send an e-mail. All the senators have e-mail addresses listed, so simply edit the above letter, copy it, and then paste the contents into an e-mail to each of your state's senators. The House of Representatives has an e-mail writing service that helps you locate your representative and delivers your message to him/her.

For more background information on this issue, read these information pages:

Reimbursement Issues

US Senate Hearings on Dialysis Treatment Care