Excellus BCBS partners with REACH Kidney Care to improve chronic kidney disease management

“When you think about chronic kidney disease, it affects so many people,” explains Dr. Kathleen Robischon, VP of Medical Affairs and Clinical Services at Excellus BlueCross BlueShield. “Any interventions we can take to slow the progression of the disease are a plus.”

People are diagnosed with chronic kidney disease (CKD) when their kidneys are damaged and unable to perform their normal function of filtering blood. The National Institutes of Health estimates that 1 in 7 adults has a form of CKD. As the disease progresses, kidney function continues to decline.

“When managing chronic kidney disease, we want to reduce risk factors, limit damage to the kidneys and slow progression of the disease,” adds Dr. Robischon. “We provide care management for members with chronic kidney diseases stages 1 through 3. When a member moves into stage 4, we offer the support of REACH Kidney Care.”

How REACH Kidney Care helps

REACH Kidney Care* is a kidney health management program designed to help members with stage 4-5 chronic kidney disease navigate services and follow their physician’s treatment plan. Members work one-on-one with a multi-disciplinary care team that provides personalized support to help members make the most of their care and manage their CKD. The REACH program is offered virtually, over the phone and in-person at no cost to members that have this benefit included in their plan. The goal of the program is to improve care while delaying the need for more costly interventions such as dialysis.

“We are pleased that our eligible patients have the opportunity for additional support and resources,” explains Dr. Philip T. Ondocin of Nephrology Associates of Syracuse, PC. “We encourage all patients to maximize their insurance benefits to support their kidney function and slow down the progression of their disease.”

Caring for a loved one with kidney disease

ElenaMarie Burns, Excellus BCBS Provider Programs Project Coordinator, faced the challenges of navigating CKD when her father suffered a stroke in his 50s that led to the discovery that his kidneys were not functioning properly.

As his primary caregiver, her father’s CKD diagnosis marked a significant change in ElenaMarie’s life. “We had to uproot everything because he could not take care of himself,” she explains. This meant giving up her full-time job and moving with her young son to her father’s house to provide the care he needed.

She remembers times when her father would stop taking his medication or resist following the doctor’s dietary instructions. “We didn’t have someone to sit and talk to him, like a care management team, that would say ‘hey let’s take a look at all the medications you are taking, hey let’s find out what is going on here’… to have that collaboration of care. I think he could have benefited from that,” says ElenaMarie.

Within a couple of years of diagnosis, her father began dialysis, which eventually meant waking up early and traveling in a medical van to the hospital multiple times each week. “The dialysis really did a number on him,” explains ElenaMarie. “This was a very robust individual and seeing him go down to 140 pounds in the end, he did not look like my dad anymore.”

Support for managing CKD

Dr. Robischon notes that ElenaMarie’s experience is not uncommon as patients and caregivers often face challenges managing multiple medications and doctor’s visits. “There is a lot of information and responsibility that falls on the patient to try to keep track of all of this,” says Dr. Robischon. “REACH works to help support our members and make sure they are getting their labs done and following up with medications and more.”

These care management services were not available when ElenaMarie was caring for her father. Knowing what is available to patients and caregivers now, she says, “I think that education [provided by the care management team and REACH Kidney Care] would have given my father a better quality of life.” And she sees the benefit it would have brought to her as a caregiver. “Having the support and a cheerleading squad pointing me in the right direction would have been so important.”

*REACH Kidney Care is an independent not-for-profit that offers kidney disease management support to Excellus BlueCross BlueShield members.