My Why: Changing the Course of Kidney Disease Awareness

March is National Kidney Month, but kidney disease doesn't wait for March. It's happening 24/7, affecting over 37 million people in the ¹ many of whom doesn't even know they have it. That silence is the most dangerous part.

Today, fewer than half of patients at risk for chronic kidney disease (CKD) undergo proper screening or see a nephrologist. What's worse is that the lack of early intervention spells poor outcomes and extensive costs, not just for individuals but for the healthcare system as a whole. Kidney disease is common, but it doesn't have to be catastrophic.

From frustration to optimism

Before joining Interwell, I was content in my role as a practicing nephrologist. I enjoyed the day-to-day patient interactions and believed I was making progress earning those small victories that come with a successful visit.

But then, six months later, I would see that patient in a follow-up appointment where, despite my careful planning, almost nothing had changed, and we had lost a vital opportunity to slow their disease progression. It was frustrating, and frankly, disheartening.

Thanks to the rise of value-based care models that empower clinicians and encourage the use of predictive analytics, interdisciplinary care teams, and patient-centered care, I've seen how the system can now deliver what wasn't possible in my early days:

• Access to actionable data: With electronic health records, advanced analytics, and predictive modeling we can identify patterns and trends at a population level—like who is eligible for ACE inhibitors but isn't prescribed one—and intervene more effectively.
• Support for patients: Value-based care allows us to provide resources like transportation, health literacy materials, and continuous follow-up—tools that address critical social determinants of health.
• Proven outcomes: Recent efforts in federal programs incentivizing value-based kidney care have shown incredible results, from decreased hospitalizations to fewer unplanned dialysis starts. These aren't just numbers. They represent quality of life for real people.

Joining Interwell was a moment of clarity for me—it felt like the perfect time, the perfect team, and the perfect opportunity to drive real change. Seeing our strong success validates our approach, as does the continued expansion of our payer partnerships to support more of their members. We are also working with our partners to move care upstream to CKD stage 3a-b to treat patients earlier and slow disease progression, exactly the kind of meaningful impact I'm passionate about being part of.

Kidney health awareness is a year-long responsibility

The need to increase CKD awareness is more urgent than ever before because we now have the tools to slow disease progression, prolong lives, and lighten the weight of this disease. These four advancements stand out as game changers during my career:

• Erythropoietin stimulating agents (ESAs): Introduced in the late 1980s, these address severe anemia associated with kidney failure, reducing reliance on blood transfusions and improving transplant eligibility for many patients.
• CKD medications: SLGT2 inhibitors that help the body lower blood sugar levels have proven effective at slowing CKD progression. There's also excitement around GLP-1 RAs, which were first developed to manage type 2 diabetes, as a CKD treatment.
• Advances in transplantation medication: Drugs like cyclosporine and tacrolimus dramatically improved patient outcomes and survival rates.
• Xenotransplantation: While still in its early stages, xenotransplantation—using organs from genetically modified animals—offers a potential solution to the organ donor shortage that could transform kidney care.

But our patients can only benefit from these advances if they know they exist. Kidney care has advanced so much over the last several decades, even our colleagues in other areas of medicine—including primary care physicians who play a pivotal role in early screening—may not be aware of the options now available to improve the lives of patients with CKD.

Now is the time for action

Kidney disease may be silent, but we can’t afford silence anymore. At Interwell Health, we’ve made it our mission to change the course of kidney disease, but raising awareness is a collective effort and we can’t do it alone. Together, we can stop kidney disease from robbing people of the future they deserve.

Imagine the impact we can have when awareness meets action. Will you be part of that change?

References 

1. National Kidney Foundation: 37 Million American Adults Now Estimated to Have Chronic Kidney Disease. https://www.kidney.org/press-room/37-million-american-adults-now-estimated-to-have-chronic-kidney-disease