Financial Condition
and Results of Operations
Overview
We are engaged primarily in providing dialysis services and manufacturing and distributing products and equipment for the treatment of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). In the U.S., we also perform clinical laboratory testing. We estimate that providing dialysis services and distributing dialysis products and equipment represents an over $69 BN worldwide market with expected annual worldwide value growth of around 6%. Patient growth results from factors such as the aging population and increased life expectancies; shortage of donor organs for kidney transplants, increasing incidence and better treatment of and survival of patients with diabetes and hypertension, which frequently precede the onset of ESRD; improvements in treatment quality, which prolong patient life; and improving standards of living in developing countries, which make life-saving dialysis treatment available. Key to continued growth in revenue is our ability to attract new patients in order to increase the number of treatments performed each year. For that reason, we believe the number of treatments performed each year is a strong indicator of continued revenue growth and success. In addition, the reimbursement and ancillary services utilization environment significantly influences our business. In the past we experienced and also expect in the future generally stable reimbursements for dialysis services. This includes the balancing of unfavorable reimbursement changes in certain countries with favorable changes in other countries. The majority of treatments are paid for by governmental institutions such as Medicare in the United States. As a consequence of the pressure to decrease healthcare costs, reimbursement rate increases have historically been limited. Our ability to influence the pricing of our services is limited
A majority of our U.S. dialysis services is paid for by the Medicare program. Medicare payments for dialysis services provided before January 1, 2011 were based on a composite rate, which included a drug add-on adjustment, case-mix adjustments, and a regional wage index adjustment. The drug add-on adjustment was established under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) to account for differences in Medicare reimbursement for separately billable pharmaceuticals pre-MMA and the new average sales price reimbursement system established by the MMA.
For calendar year 2010, the Centers for CMS kept the drug add-on amount constant at the calendar year 2009 rate of $20.33 per treatment, while it increased the base portion of the composite rate by 1% pursuant to the requirement in MIPPA. As a result, the drug add-on amount, constant in dollar terms, declined to 15% of the total per-treatment payment in 2010 and for 2011 it is 14.7%. The base portion of the composite rate, unlike many other payment rates in Medicare, has not been automatically updated each year. As a result, this portion of the composite payment rate has not received an annual update in the absence of a statutory change. In MIPPA, Congress provided for a 1.0% increase in the base portion of the composite rate in 2010. Further, Congress eliminated a provision that previously paid hospital-based facilities slightly more than independent (or free-standing) facilities. For 2010, the base composite rate was $135.15 for both independent and hospital-based facilities, an increase of 1.0% from the 2009 rate. CMS updated the wage index adjustment applicable to ESRD facilities from the 25/75 blend between adjustments based on old metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and those based on new core-based statistical areas (CBSAs) used in 2008. In 2009, CMS completed the transition from the MSA definition to the CBSA definition, and facilities are now paid according to the CBSA rate. For 2010, CMS reduced the wage index floor from 0.70 to 0.65.
Until January 1, 2011 certain other items and services that we furnish at our dialysis centers were included in the composite rate and were eligible for separate Medicare reimbursement. The most significant of these items are drugs or biologicals, such as erythropoietin-stimulating agents (ESAs), vitamin D analogs, and iron, which were reimbursed at 106% of the average sales price as reported to CMS by the manufacturer. Products and support services furnished to ESRD patients receiving dialysis treatment at home were also reimbursed separately under a reimbursement structure comparable to the in-center composite rate.
With the enactment of MIPPA in 2008, Congress mandated the development of an expanded ESRD bundled payment system for services furnished on or after January 1, 2011. On July 26, 2010, CMS issued a final rule implementing the case-mix adjusted bundled prospective payment system (ESRD PPS) for ESRD dialysis facilities in accordance with MIPPA. Under the ESRD PPS, CMS reimburses dialysis facilities with a single payment for each dialysis treatment, inclusive of (i) all items and services included in the composite rate, (ii) oral vitamin D analogues, oral levocarnitine (an amino acid derivative) and all ESAs and other pharmaceuticals (other than vaccines) furnished to ESRD patients that were previously reimbursed separately under Part B of the Medicare program, (iii) most diagnostic laboratory tests and (iv) other items and services furnished to individuals for the treatment of ESRD. ESRD-related drugs with only an oral form will be reimbursed under the ESRD PPS starting in January 2014 with an adjusted payment amount to be determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services to reflect the additional cost to dialysis facilities of providing these medications. The initial ESRD PPS base reimbursement rate is set at $229.63 per dialysis treatment (representing 98% of the estimated 2011 Medicare program costs of dialysis care as calculated under the current reimbursement system). The base ESRD PPS payment is subject to case mix adjustments that take into account individual patient characteristics (e.g., age, body surface area, body mass, time on dialysis) and certain co-morbidities. The base payment is also adjusted for (i) certain high cost patient outliers due to unusual variations in medically necessary care, (ii) disparately high costs incurred by low volume facilities relative to other facilities, (iii) provision of home dialysis training, (iv) wage-related costs in the geographic area in which the provider is located and (v), the Transition Adjustor.
Beginning in 2012, the ESRD PPS payment amount will be subject to annual adjustment based on increases in the costs of a “market basket” of certain healthcare items and services less a productivity adjustment. The ESRD PPS’s pay-for-performance standards, also known as the quality improvement program or QIP, focusing in the first year on anemia management and dialysis adequacy, will be fully implemented effective January 1, 2012. Dialysis facilities that fail to achieve the established quality standards will have payments reduced by up to 2%, based on performance in 2010 as an initial performance period.
The ESRD PPS will be phased in over four years with full implementation for all dialysis facilities on January 1, 2014. However, providers could elect in November 2010 to become fully subject to the new system starting in January 2011.
Although, based upon CMS’s assessment, we think that the ESRD PPS will result in a lower reimbursement rate on average as a result of the above measures by CMS, nearly all of our U.S. dialysis facilities have elected to be fully subject to the ESRD PPS starting on January 1, 2011. Our plans to mitigate the impact of the ESRD PPS include two broad measures. First, we are working with other providers, CMS and the U.S. Congress toward favorably revising the calculation of the Transition Adjustor for 2011. Second, we are also working with medical directors and treating physicians to make protocol changes used in treating patients and are negotiating pharmaceutical acquisition cost savings. Finally, we are seeking to achieve greater efficiencies and better patient outcomes by introducing new initiatives to improve patient care upon initiation of dialysis, increase the percentage of patients using home therapies and achieve additional cost reductions in our clinics. We are currently evaluating the impact of ESRD PPS and the above mitigation plan on our business.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was enacted in the United States on March 23, 2010 and subsequently amended by the Health Care and Educational Affordability Reconciliation Act (as amended, ACA). ACA will implement broad healthcare system reforms, including (i) provisions to facilitate access to affordable health insurance for all Americans, (ii) expansion of the Medicaid program, (iii) an industry fee on pharmaceutical companies starting in 2011 based on sales of brand name pharmaceuticals to government healthcare programs, (iv) a 2.3% excise tax on manufacturers’ medical device sales starting in 2013, (v) increases in Medicaid prescription drug rebates effective January 1, 2010, (vi) commercial insurance market reforms that protect consumers, such as bans on lifetime and annual limits, coverage of pre-existing conditions, limits on administrative costs, and limits on waiting periods, (vii) provisions encouraging integrated care, efficiency and coordination among providers and (viii) provisions for reduction of healthcare program waste and fraud. ACA’s medical device excise tax, Medicaid drug rebate increases and annual pharmaceutical industry fees will adversely impact our product business earnings and cash flows. We expect modest favorable impact from ACA’s integrated care and commercial insurance consumer protection provisions.
Effective February 15, 2011, the VA adopted payment rules which will reduce its payment rates for non-contracted dialysis services to coincide with those of the Medicare program. As a result of the enactment of these new rules, we expect to experience variability in our aggregated VA reimbursement rates for contracted and non-contracted services. In addition, we may also experience reductions in the volume of VA patients treated in our facilities.
We have identified three operating segments, North America, International, and Asia-Pacific. For reporting purposes, we have aggregated the International and Asia-Pacific segments as “International”. We aggregated these segments due to their similar economic characteristics. These characteristics include same services provided and same products sold, same type patient population, similar methods of distribution of products and services and similar economic environments. The general partner’s Management Board member responsible for the profitability and cash flow of each segment’s various businesses supervises the management of each operating segment. The accounting policies of the operating segments are the same as those we apply in preparing our consolidated financial statements under accounting principles generally accepted in the United States (U.S. GAAP). Our management evaluates each segment using a measure that reflects all of the segment’s controllable revenues and expenses.
With respect to the performance of our business operations, our management believes the most appropriate measure in this regard is operating income which measures our source of earnings. Financing is a corporate function which segments do not control. Therefore, we do not include interest expense relating to financing as a segment measurement. We also regard income taxes to be outside the segments’ control. Similarly, we do not allocate “corporate costs”, which relate primarily to certain headquarters overhead charges, including accounting and finance, professional services, etc. because we believe that these costs are also not within the control of the individual segments. In addition, certain acquisitions and intangible assets are not allocated to a segment but are accounted for as “corporate”. Accordingly, all of these items are excluded from our analysis of segment results and are discussed below in the discussion of our consolidated results of operations.