2023 Volume 50 Issue 4 Pages 139-149
Objective: The number of dialysis patients has been increasing in recent years, and the introduction of dialysis among the elderly has been on the rise. We assessed recent trends in hemodialysis from the perspective of medical insurance treatment.
Methods: Referring to the “National Database（NDB）Open Data” and “Statistics by Social Medical Practice” published by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, we examined the annual changes in the number of total calculations and number of points calculated as “artificial kidney.”
Results: The number of calculations was 47,516,874 in fiscal year（FY）2020, thus representing an increase of 4,171,485（9.6%）times over the 6-year period, and the number of calculated points was 106,231,829,880 in FY2019, thus representing an increase of 12,809,022,095（13.7%）points over the 5-year period. However, 99,365,974,532 points were calculated in FY2020, which represented a decrease of 6.5% from the previous year. The peak age group was in the late 60s in FY 2014, gradually moving into the early 70s, indicating an aging trend. The number of calculated points in June 2019 was 9,233,060,015, thus showing an increasing trend, while the number of calculated points in June 2020 was 8,682,058,401, a decrease of 6.0% from the previous year. Additionally, 8,720,261,957 points were calculated in June 2021, thus showing an increase of 0.4% from the previous year.
Conclusion: The number of artificial kidney calculations and calculated points increased every year until 2019, but decreased in June 2020 compared to the previous year, suggesting that the reimbursement revisions and COVID-19 infection had an impact.
