Changes in Medicare reimbursement and patient-nephrologist visits, quality of care, and health-related quality of life.

Background: Medicare's reimbursement system was changed in January 2004 to encourage more frequent visits between dialysis patients and nephrologists. We sought to determine the impact of this policy change on patient-nephrologist visits, quality of care, and health-related quality of life.

Methods: We examined visits and outcomes for 2,043 patients at 12 hemodialysis facilities in northeast Ohio for 12 months before and 7 months after the reimbursement change.

Highly active antiretroviral therapy and the incidence of HIV-1-associated nephropathy: a 12-year cohort study.

Objective: to assess temporal changes in the incidence of human immunodeficiency virus-1-associated nephropathy (HIVAN), and the association with use of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).

Methods: HIVAN incidence and risk factors were assessed in 3976 HIV-1-infected individuals followed in clinical cohort in Baltimore, Maryland, USA from 1989 to 2001. The incidence of HIVAN, defined by biopsy or a conservative uniformly applied clinical coding protocol, was expressed in terms of person-years, and Poisson regression was used for multivariate analysis.