Dialysis technicians do several roles in relation to the treatment called dialysis.

Such roles range from monitoring as well as maintain the equipment used for dialysis to being the dialysis patients’ primary care giver.

Job Description

Technicians in dialysis are responsible to maintaining and operating dialysis treatment associated equipment.

Such personnel functions in many roles from maintenance and repair of the equipment to monitoring of water treatment to reprocessing of dialyzer to monitoring of the patient’s vascular aces and also direct care to the dialysis patient.

It is these technicians who will also assist the patients with mental or physical concerns which the patients may have after, during or before the dialysis procedure.

Duties of a dialysis technician

Dialysis technicians have some duties which they need to perform.

Such duties include:

• Sterilization of patient’s blood.
• Taking the patient’s blood pressure.
• Checking the weight of the patient.
• Inspecting then maintain the dialysis machine after, during and before the dialysis procedures.
• Calculations then adjustments of removal of fluid rate.
• Creates the records of the patient after, during and before every procedure during the dialysis.
• In case the patient condition changes, the technician is supposed to inform physician or nurse of such changes.
• Always ready to perform given medical procedures needed emergently instantaneously like CPR while an event is ongoing like a patient who is almost getting cardiac arrest.
• Measurements ten adjustments of rate of blood flow.

Salary

Dialysis technicians also called hemodialysis technicians, nephrology technicians or renal dialysis technicians expect to earn annually a salary between $29,815 and $47,955.

Dialysis techs with minimal experience should expect a salary ranging from $29,815 to $38,217 while the experienced senior techs can earn up to $47,955 annually.

Generally, dialysis techs earn a medium salary of $38,217.

However, the salary may be lowered or raised from some factors which include where you are working from urban or rural areas.

For example, the salary of dialysis technicians median is mid $43,491 for Massachusetts but when it comes to Alabama the range is different as it is quite lower about $36,268.

The difference arises from the varied living cost in the two areas of comparison.

Average Annual Salary by State

State	Avg. Annual Salary
Alabama	$36,269
Alaska	$43,415
Arizona	$37,873
Arkansas	$35,351
California	$42,918
Colorado	$38,637
Connecticut	$41,198
Delaware	$40,739
Florida	$36,765
Georgia	$37,644
Hawaii	$39,860
Idaho	$36,268
Illinois	$40,510
Indiana	$37,338
Iowa	$36,918
Kansas	$36,803
Kentucky	$36,230
Louisiana	$37,950
Maine	$38,599
Maryland	$39,211
Massachusetts	$43,491
Michigan	$39,364
Minnesota	$40,778
Mississippi	$34,013
Missouri	$37,567
Montana	$36,383
Nebraska	$36,153
Nevada	$39,822
New Hampshire	$40,357
New Jersey	$43,644
New Mexico	$35,695
New York	$45,899
North Carolina	$37,453
North Dakota	$35,657
Ohio	$38,102
Oklahoma	$36,306
Oregon	$40,128
Pennsylvania	$41,122
Rhode Island	$40,472
South Carolina	$36,077
South Dakota	$33,631
Tennessee	$35,427
Texas	$37,950
Utah	$36,230
Vermont	$37,720
Virginia	$38,332
Washington	$41,809
West Virginia	$34,854
Wisconsin	$38,026
Wyoming	$34,778

Education

For you to qualify becoming a dialysis technician, you need to secure a degree of the same program from a well-recognized community college.

The program is noted to go for only two semesters which means the student will only take one year for completion.

Requirements: Education & Training

On the education requirements and the career’s training, the student is required to complete a program approved by the state from a hospital that deals with training for dialysis technician or a technical school.

Just like it’s stated above, the program can be taken in one year or less.

Once the student graduates, they need to get certified by a board called Nephrology Examiners Board of Technology and Nursing otherwise called BONENT.

It is this body which is responsible for certifying that the student graduate has completed course work on dialysis and also is able to apply the learnt concepts in practices of the real world.

For you to sit BONENT exam, a payment of $210 is incurred if you are to take the paper exam but if you do it electronically, a charge of $240 is attracted.

Be it paper or electronic version, both exams are characterized of 150 questions.

For maintenance of the acquired certification, the technician is required to pay $55 in annual fees to keep the certification valid.

In the year 2008, Medicaid and Medicare services had a new law passed which requires every worker in the dialysis field to be certified either by the residence state or the nation of work.

Nephrology National Certification Organization meets certification requirements stated by both levels.

For this organization, their exam has 200 questions with multiple choices and charge $254 for the exam.

Core Curriculum Courses

There are other courses which dialysis technicians can take and such include:

• Dialysis environment overview
• Vascular access
• Kidney failure patients
• Dialysis principles
• Complications and procedures associated with dialysis
• Medical devices used in dialysis field

Licensing & Certification

For you to qualify as a hemodialysis certified technician you must complete approved program from a community college.

After that you now become eligible for an exam which earns you certification as hemodialysis technician issued via BONENT.

For you to work in the dialysis field, you must be certified at national and state level.

These bodies are NNCO and BONENT respectively.

BONENT exam goes for $210 and features 120 questions with multiple choices.

BONENT exam however certifies state level only.

For certification both national and state level, NNCO exam is availed.

It features 200 questions with multiple choices at a cost of $245.

The time for both exams is three hours.

Job Outlook

For the next like one decade, a projected growth of 13% is expected for dialysis.

Since baby boomers are aging, dialysis technician’s demand is expected to be on rise.