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Paying for kidney failure treatment: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, insurance, and help with medicines
For anyone on dialysis, home from a kidney transplant, or told their kidneys are failing, and for the family member who does the paperwork. It passes on, by name, what the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK, part of the NIH) and Medicare say: who can get Medicare because of kidney failure at any age, when it starts and when it ends, choosing a plan, a job’s plan and the 30 months, Medicaid and CHIP, SSDI and SSI, state programs, help for veterans and other groups, and help paying for medicines, including transplant medicines after 36 months. It builds the questions to ask and prints a wallet card. Nothing is saved.
A word with a dotted line under it, like this, opens its official definition, quoted from a U.S. government glossary.
Right now
- Thinking of skipping dialysis or a medicine because you can’t pay? Please tell your team first, and ask for the social worker today (ours). NIDDK says every dialysis clinic and transplant center must have a social worker, who may help with money, work, and feelings.
- Severe trouble breathing, chest pain, or fainting? Call 911 (ours). Money is never a reason to wait in an emergency.
- Thoughts of suicide, or all too much? Call or text 988, any hour, free (ours).
More help
- On this site: Kidney failure: choosing a treatment · Hemodialysis · Peritoneal dialysis · Kidney transplant · Kidney disease · Kidneys, bladder and urine: find the right page.
- Money and benefits: Disability benefits · Working while on benefits · Losing your health coverage · When medicine costs too much · Medical bills · When you need a doctor and can’t pay · Money help · Help for veterans.
- Alongside it: Rides to the doctor · My medicines · Get ready for your appointment · Caring for someone · Depression.
- In an emergency: Help right now (988, 911). All our free tools.
Kidneys, bladder or urine, and not sure this is the right page? The pages on this site for bladder infections, kidney stones, blood in the urine, bladder pain, bladder leaks, the prostate, kidney disease and bedwetting, on one list.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No benefits counselor, social worker, or lawyer has reviewed it. The facts were read on October 20, 2026 on NIDDK’s (NIH) page Financial Help for Treatment of Kidney Failure (last reviewed February 2020) and on Medicare’s page End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD). Where the two differ (NIDDK’s 2020 page says Medicare Advantage would open to people with ESRD in 2021, and that you may pay more for Medicare if you sign up late), we give Medicare’s current rule. The numbers (the fourth month, the first 3 months, 2 months, 12 months, 36 months, 30 months, 7 months, 5 months, 60 days, 20%) are theirs, and we add none; we give no dollar amounts, because they change every year. Ours: asking for the social worker first; never skipping a treatment or a medicine for cost without telling your team; the 911 and 988 lines; writing down who you talked to; the questions to ask; the card; the links to our other pages; and the order of the steps. What we left out: any one state’s rules; two companies NIDDK lists that compare drug prices (we name no companies); NIDDK’s older phone numbers where no current page we read gives them; its section on research studies. Nothing you tick or type here is saved or sent.