Q: We are trying to develop renal education classes in our hospital’s general medical clinic. Participating patients (pre-renal) will be those we hope can be managed by their primary care providers in coordination with our nephrology specialists before their initial renal clinic visits. Our team of educators will include an RN, an NP, a primary care physician, and a nephrologist. Any information, models, and/or links to educational resources would be much appreciated.
Everyone loses 1% of kidney function per year after age 40. If we lived long enough, all of us would need renal education!
As you try to develop classes, one of your first concerns will be whether you want to charge for them. If they are meant to be billed for, they will take a much different form than a free kidney disease education class would. Let’s explore both.
PAID CLASSES
Only Medicare pays for education classes, and patients must be at stage 4 kidney disease (ie, glomerular filtration rate [GFR], 15 to 30 mL/dL). The class can be taught in a group or an individualized format, and an RN, a dietician, or a social worker can assist—but the bulk of the class must be taught by a practitioner with a National Provider Identifier billing number (an NP, a PA, or a physician).
Medicare specifies the content of the classes and has set certain requirements regarding a class’s site and length. In addition, there must be preevaluation and postevaluation tools in place, and the number of classes over a patient’s lifetime is limited to six.
The best program available (one that contains all the needed tools, slide sets, and handouts) is Your Treatment, Your Choice8 from the National Kidney Foundation (www.kidney.org/profes sionals/KLS/YTYC.cfm). It is free, but you must be a PA, an NP, or an MD to request it.
NONPAID CLASSES AND PROGRAMS
These can be given by anybody, and the format is up to the teacher. Prevention always trumps a cure, and preventing advanced kidney disease (GFR < 60 mL/dL) fits in very well in general practice. Promoting good health habits is a common goal. To that end, instruction regarding diet, blood pressure control, blood sugar control, and smoking cessation all help slow kidney disease progression.
What’s best about offering classes like these is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There are some fantastic
normal">free programs out there. Some of our favorites are available through the National Kidney Disease Education Program (NKDEP) Web site: http://nkdep.nih.gov/resources.shtml. This is a division of one of the National Institutes of Health, paid for by your tax dollars, and it offers free or very inexpensive handouts, videos, and slide sets, all written at an eighth-grade reading level.
Among the materials offered is a phenomenal tear-off sheet, “Explaining Your Kidney Test Results,” which is available in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese (with the first five copies free, then $1 each). It illustrates the stages of kidney function using the traffic light scenario: green, yellow, or red (stage 5 CKD is the red zone) and explains what patients can do to “stay out of the red.” We consider this one of the most effective tools we can use.
NKDEP also offers free handouts listing foods high in potassium, phosphorus, protein, and sodium. Nothing is as good as a renal dietician, but these forms are an excellent alternative.
NKDEP allows you to download and reprint almost all of their information free, or you can request 50 copies of just about any item at no cost. Put your best shopper on the Web site. The amount of materials offered is truly wonderful, and you can’t beat the price.
Another program is called Kidney School (http://kidneyschool
.org), a nonprofit organization set up by the kidney community that offers all kinds of videos and slide sets at no charge.
Last, but certainly not least, is
normal">Seymour Jones and the Temple of CKD, a five-minute video put out by the Renal Support Network (RSN; www.rsnhope.org). You can request the video from RSN or find it on YouTube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDJZHIVTNzo). Though hilarious, it makes excellent points about the symptoms of chronic kidney disease.
As you can see, there are many wonderful and varied (and free!) programs out there.
With the double-whammy of an aging population and increasing obesity, the number of people with kidney disease is growing exponentially; the past 20 years have seen a 67% increase in the number of patients with CKD, which now affects more than 20 million Americans. Yet in that same 20-year period, effective treatments have been developed for CKD that “can delay and, in some cases, prevent ESRD.”9 Patients with CKD need not assume there will be dialysis in their future.