In the same issue of the journal, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine researchers published a study on kidney transplants that found that patients at for-profit dialysis centers are less likely to get on transplant wait-lists than those at not-for-profit centers.
They mainly faulted understaffing. But they also said that for-profit centers might not want to lose patients who get transplants.
The HMS researchers conducted telephone interviews with about 1400 patients from Alabama, California, Michigan, Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C. All of the patients had been on dialysis at least 10 months.
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Ayanian is currently working on a survey of the physicians who cared for the patients in this study.