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Show Gommiiioo proEjoe Kidney troatiiiootQ 'We're not trying to kill th", program we're not trying to deprive victims of kidney disease of the care they need just to live. But we do want to eliminate waste in the program. Peoples lives are literally at stake. Renal dialysis will cost over $1 billion in federal monies this year. Uncontrolled Un-controlled waste or worse, undetected fraud - is absolutely abso-lutely inexcusable. It's a life or death program, and we want to be sure it's run properly. 'If someone is profiting from overcharges, I want it stopped,' said Hatch. Hatch said the information he has does not show problems prob-lems at any of the eight dialysis centers in Utah. He said about 175 Utahns are in the dialysis program at any one time. Investigators from the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources are taking careful notes on the oucome of audits into allegations alle-gations of overcharge in a federal program that pays for life saving kidney treatments. treat-ments. Audits of the program since 1977 indicate one clinic clin-ic may have overcharged the federal government as much as $1.6 million for kidney kid-ney dialysis treatments. Up to 80 percent of costs for dialysis are borne by the federal government under a Medicare program in place since 1973. Patients with kidney disease or malfunctioning malfunc-tioning kidneys need the treatments, more formally call renal dialysis, as often as three times a week to cleanse impurities from their blood a function the kidneys provide normally. |