Clinic Provides Hemodialysis on Potrero Hill

For more than a decade, the clinic located at 626 Potrero Avenue, at 18th Street, has provided hemodialysis to patients with kidney failure. Previously operating as Renal Advantage Incorporated, it merged in 2012 into the Fresenius Medical Care under which it now operates. 

The facility’s entrance – which faces west, on Hampshire Street – opens into a small reception and waiting area with colorful posters depicting kidney-disease-friendly diets and a variety of signs in a half-dozen languages. The bulk of the 15,000 square foot facility, spread across two floors, consists of a large room with the quiet buzz of efficiency and cleanliness. On a typical weekday staff in masks and aprons move quickly and with purpose among patients at the clinic’s 25 dialysis stations. 

The center operates on three shifts daily, six days a week, with up to twenty-five patients and around fifteen employees in each shift. It focuses on patients with chronic kidney or end stage renal disease, who usually require dialysis indefinitely, typically three times a week with each session lasting three to four hours. 

While many of the center’s patients live in the area, others travel from Daly City or North Beach, including former Potrero Hill residents who have moved away but continue to visit for dialysis sessions. Some are brought by medical transport service vans, including Mobility Express, based in San Leandro, whose wheelchair-accessible van is regularly seen in the parking lot. 

The facility’s California’s Department of Health Care Accessibility and Information filings indicate that it has been operating at a loss for many years, while its parent corporation, with annual revenue of more than $20 billion, serving in excess of 330,000 patients, is financially healthy. The clinic has generally scored above average on Medicare quality of care assessments, avoiding unnecessary blood transfusions and maintaining preferred forms of surgical access to patients’ blood vessels. 

The dialysis center is the property’s third significant use. Built in the late-1940s, the building served as the headquarters of an extermination company for many decades, then leased to the San Francisco Police Department. It was vacant before its permit for a modest expansion and use as a dialysis center was approved unanimously by the Planning Commission.