Chronic kidney disease cost Medicare $120 billion in 2017. One in three Americans are at risk of contracting the disease. Despite those staggering numbers, we have cost effective ways of treating CKD. We just need to catch it early.
In this special video for Kidney Month, our CEO Jonathan (Yonatan) Adiri explains how a convenient at-home urine test can make a dramatic difference in catching CKD early.
Video Transcript
March is Kidney Month, when we shine a spotlight on the only organ in the human body that has universal health care in the U.S.
Chronic kidney disease cost Medicare about $120 billion in 2017. It impacts 70 million people at risk annually. But despite that staggering number, we have cost effective ways of treating chronic kidney disease. We just need to catch it early.
The best way to do so is with a simple urine test that measures people’s albumin to creatinine ratio or ACR. But according to the National Kidney Foundation, only 30% percent of people at risk, those with diabetes and hypertension mainly, do their annual test.
Low adherence to this annual urine test is really bad, because that test can detect early onset of the disease, which is mostly asymptomatic at that point.
Our data shows that convenience greatly increases adherence. We saw this in the study we conducted with Geisinger Health and the National Kidney Foundation in 2018.
We tried to see what would happen if instead of calling people and asking them to come to the lab to do the ACR test, which results in only 30 percent of people doing that, we tried something else.
Instead, we sent ACR test kits into people’s homes and enabled them to do the tests with their smartphone. 72% percent of the people who got those kits at home took the test. That’s more than double the current numbers.
That’s more and more people testing in a cost effective and convenient way at home and treating the condition early. We believe this is the way to increase adherence.
And we’re thrilled, again, to partner with the National Kidney Foundation this year to turn this vision into a reality for millions of Americans at risk for CKD. So stay tuned.
