Medicare coverage for infants requiring long-term peritoneal dialysis
My great niece was born with polycystic kidney disease. She has required continuous hemodialysis since she was approximately 1 week old. She is now 4 months old and transitioning to peritoneal dialysis after having had both kidneys removed. Her mom was told at the hospital that the baby would not be eligible for Medicare for 30 months. This contradicts everything I have tried to research. Does anyone know if this is true? If not, what are the steps she should take? If it is true, does anyone have any other resources to be explored for any type of coverage?
Medicare SSD is income and asset-based and you have to apply with a long waiting period. If it is a cost issue, you might want to ask about your state's Medicaid administration, that can help. Here is an article with some resources for disability that might help: https://chronic-kidney-disease.net/resources-disability If not, the hospital social worker should know better than anyone else what the deal is in your state in terms of Medicaid and probably knows about Medicare as well, frankly. I'd seek them out. Let us know if there's anything else we can do to help. Keep on keepin' on, DPM
