I am glad to hear that some of the Nurses are doing well. It is important for the dialysis consumer that the Nursing staff is well compensated. For me, as Economics individual, excellent compensation makes for a much more positive experience for the dialysis consumer. It does not make me mad that someone makes a good living, no problem. However, on my posts in the past, I have wrote about my experiences at Davita, from dialysis consumers and members of the Nursing staff. In fact, most of the negative comments have been from Nurses who have worked for Davita. I have had a number of Nurses tell me that DaVita scared them to death, they were scared for the patients. For me, I am in the Home Program and I have never been frightened. In fact, there are some outstanding Nurses in our program. I think patients that attack Nursing staff should be thrown out the door. The Nursing staff is much more patient about that than I would be, that nonsense should not be tolerated and Vice-Versa. This issue is about insurance. I realize and know that the Nursing staff does not have anything to do with insurance and most do not want to be bothered by insurance issues. I was told that when my COBRA insurance ran out after 29 months, as mandated by law, that Davita would obtain Secondary Coverage for me, for what Medicare did not cover, great. When the time came for them to pay for the insurance, they told me that the American Kidney Fund would not pay any premium over $500.00 per month. I called the Kidney Fund and they said they would pay any claim that was submitted. The end of the long story is that I called the Chief Social Worker for the Metro area and basically, she told me that that the stockholders of Davita were more important. In addition, I waited while Davita promised Extended Treatments to me with NxStage for 4 1/2 years, they never delivered on their promises. I raised that issue with the Chief Social Worker and she said, "The Stockholders are more important." My premium was going to $525.00 per month, what did they think the cost would be for a dialysis patient? Basically, in a nutshell, Davita was the one that would not submit an insurance claim over $500, because they did not want to pay anymore into the Kidney Fund. All of this after, I paid Davita 30 months of private health insurance. Well, it is time to call DCI or Liberty, I am thru with these people. I was happy to pay $25.00 per month, yet, that was not good enough. Davita is throwing people into the streets. Where do they think that dialysis consumers are going to get this kind of money? What in the name of God was Kent Thiry thinking? I was told that this decision reaches the top at Davita.
