Doctors at dialysis clinics have failed to inform thousands of patients about kidney transplantation, an oversight that could shorten their lives and cost taxpayers millions of dollars a year. Kidney transplantation adds an average of 10 years to a patient's life and costs the federal Medicare program thousands of dollars less per patient than conventional dialysis. Yet, thousands of patients have started dialysis without hearing about transplant options. Some spend as long as five years on the debilitating treatments before they are placed on the nation's bloated transplant wait list, while others who would benefit from the surgery are not even on the list. The investigation uncovered that money can play a strong role when it comes to prescribing dialysis before transplantation.
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