On Tuesday, a union sued DaVita, Fresenius Medical Care and Satellite Healthcare, saying Latino and Asian patients were more likely to experience adverse symptoms while undergoing hemodialysis at the companies’ California centers.

The Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West and the National Health Law Program claim that nearly one in five Asian patients is treated and one in seven Latino patients is treated at a rate of more than 13 milliliters per hour. That rate was higher than for white patients, according to the team’s analysis of kidney data submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

In general, higher ultrafiltration rates were associated with higher rates of hospitalization and die rate, longer recovery time, and severe symptoms such as permanent heart damage and loss of cognitive function.

Several patients included in the complaint said that due to high-speed hemodialysis and high ultrafiltration rates of more than 10 to 13 milliliters per hour, peers and family members were receiving the same treatment.

“No one should experience high ultrafiltration rates,” said Jane Perkins, legal director of the National Health Law Project. “But the fact that the data show that Asian American and Latino patients experience it more frequently than white patients is startling, and really unacceptable.”

Dialysis providers receive federal funding through Medicaid and Medicare, leading these groups to claim that treatment disparities violate the Civil Rights Act and the Affordable Care Act.

“The allegations contradict Fresenius’ track record of improving quality and outcomes for all patients, regardless of race or ethnicity,” Fresenius Medical Care North America spokesman Brad Pfer said in a statement. .

“The ultrafiltration rate is not prescribed by dialysis providers because each dialysis treatment is based on each patient’s doctor’s prescription,” Puffer said. “We continue to drive new product innovations to improve fluid management and personalize therapy. We strongly question the motivation for this complaint.”

California’s dialysis industry has been the subject of regulation and regulatory battles business practice In recent years, including a ballot proposal To be defeated in 2020, it will require a trained physician at each of the state’s 600 dialysis clinics to improve patient care.

DaVita and Fresenius oppose SEIU-UHW’s measure to increase regulations because it could reduce access to care, especially for high-risk dialysis patients of color.

More than 65,000 patients in California receive regular dialysis to remove waste and fluid from their blood after their kidneys stop working, the complaint said. Approximately 43% of dialysis patients in California are Latino and 18% are Asian.

Currently, Davita and Fresenius According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 70 percent of centers in California operate about 83 percent of dialysis facilities in the United States.

The lawsuit from SEIU-UHW and the National Health Law Program asks the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights to ask dialysis centers to stop providing dialysis treatment at ultrafiltration rates above 10 milliliters per hour.