Restore Protections for Dialysis Patients Act

Key Points

• This bill strengthens protections for people with end-stage renal disease (permanent kidney failure) by making sure their private health insurance cannot treat dialysis differently from other medical services. It closes loopholes that some insurers have used to limit or reduce dialysis coverage.
• The bill explicitly bans private insurance plans from shifting the cost of dialysis and other care for kidney patients onto Medicare earlier than required. Under current law, private insurance is supposed to be the primary payer for a set period before Medicare takes over, but some plans have tried to push patients onto Medicare sooner to save money.
• Insurance plans would be prohibited from applying any benefit limitation — including restrictions on which providers are in-network — that disproportionately harms dialysis patients compared to people with other conditions.
• While the bill protects coverage, it does not force insurance companies to include any specific dialysis clinic in their network. Plans can still choose which providers they work with — they just cannot use network design as a backdoor way to discriminate against kidney patients.