Study: How Employment or Insurance Type may Affect Outcomes for Patients with End Stage Renal Disease

Although it is believed that employed or commercially insured dialysis patients can have better clinical outcomes and improved quality of life, there has been a lack of scientifically robust data to support this belief. To solve for this lack of data, DaVita Clinical Research conducted a retrospective study with data derived from de-identified electronic health records to evaluate whether employment or insurance status affected outcomes for incident dialysis patients.

After accounting for differences in patient characteristics, commercial insurance and employment were independently associated with:

• Lower risk of death
• Lower rate of hospitalization
• Higher rate of transplantation
• Higher KDQOL scores (commercial insurance in four of five domains, employment in all five domains)

Most employed patients had commercial insurance. Unemployed patients had primarily Medicare or other insurance. Adjustments were not made for these differences because insurance type may be one contributing factor to how employment impacts health outcomes. Because of the strong relationship between employment status and insurance type, there was no analysis of the independent link between each of these elements and outcomes.

For more information, read the research poster (which was presented at ASN) here or the Journal of Nephrology abstract here.