Red Dots for Dialysis Decline

A third of dialysis clinics in America fail to meet federal standards. This map from CBS News shows you where.

The United States spends more on dialysis treatments than nearly any other country in the world. Yet despite this enormous financial outlay, it has the highest dialysis-related death rate among developed nations. A key reason for this disparity is that healthcare in the U.S. operates as a for-profit business. In other words the entire industry is designed not only to provide healthcare to patients but to maximise returns for shareholders. 

CBS News reports that one-third of dialysis clinics have failed to meet federal standards this year. A significant factor appears to be pressure from clinic owners to implement so-called "bazooka dialysis" - a high-turnover model that prioritizes quantity over quality. Under this model, clinics rush to treat as many patients as possible each day and, as a consequence, some patients do not receive the dialysis treatment that they need. 

To help the public understand the scope of the issue, CBS News has created an interactive map of nearly 7,500 dialysis clinics across the U.S. Clinics that failed to meet federal standards this year are marked in red. Users can search the map by clinic name or address. Clicking on a clinic's marker reveals its federal performance review score (a score of 55 or higher meets the standard).