DATE: September 27, 2024

[Washington, D.C. – September 27, 2024] — The Kidney Transplant Collaborative (KTC) today praised the bipartisan coalition of members of the U.S. House of Representatives who wrote to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center calling for increased support for living organ donation through the proposed Increasing Organ Transplant Access (IOTA) Model. KTC proudly played a leading role in convening this important coalition representing a broad spectrum of the House of Representatives. The letter highlights the critical need for policies that remove barriers to living kidney donations and ensure equitable access to transplants for all Americans.

The House letter, signed by lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, calls attention to the ongoing crisis in End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) care and emphasizes the need for comprehensive action to increase access to life-saving kidney transplants, including increased support for living donors. The letter recommends that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation include coverage of navigators for both recipients and living donors, and full cost reimbursement for living donors, as part of the IOTA model. The letter can be viewed here.

KTC strongly supports the House’s focus on addressing racial and geographic disparities in transplant access and their call for policy changes that support living kidney donors. As of 2023, there are approximately 88,500 Americans waiting for a kidney transplant, with tens of thousands more in need of a transplant but not yet on the waiting list. The average wait is 3-5 years, and 12-17 persons die each day waiting for a kidney transplant. The waiting list is growing faster than organs from deceased donors are becoming available and while deceased donor transplants have increased approximately 250% over the past 20 years, living donation has been stagnant. While more needs to be done to improve kidney recovery from deceased donors, the gap can be closed even faster if living donations increase. Increasing donations has been documented to save the federal government significant funds, however, currently lacks meaningful federal support.

“We are thrilled to see bipartisan leadership come together to support kidney patients and living donors,” said Andy Howard, MD, FACP, Vice Chairman of the Kidney Transplant

Collaborative. The proposed IOTA Model represents a unique opportunity to not only increase transplant access but also to ensure that living kidney donors are fully supported throughout the process. The recommendations in this letter are essential to saving lives and ensuring the long-term success of the program.”

The House letter highlights several critical areas for improvement, including recommending that the model specifically provide for navigators to work with both potential transplant recipients and donors to assist through the process. The letter also urges CMS to remove financial barriers for living donors by covering out-of-pocket costs not reimbursed by other programs, ensuring that donors are not financially disincentivized.

“We commend the House for recognizing the vital role that living donors play in our transplant system and for pushing CMS to take action,” added Martha Gershun, Special Advisor to the Kidney Transplant Collaborative. “KTC looks forward to working with Congress, CMS, and other stakeholders to ensure these recommendations become a reality.”

KTC is advocating for policies to increase kidney transplants and reduce the financial and unnecessary barriers to transplantation for recipients, donors, and their families. National legislation, called the Living Organ Volunteer Engagement (LOVE) Act, is needed to integrate and coordinate public and professional education, to create a patient navigator program supporting living donor kidney transplants, to improve reimbursement of costs for living donation, and to conduct necessary studies and other activities to create a program which is effective for potential donors, transplant professionals, and the hospital centers which care for living donors. Unlike others in the field, KTC is focused on increasing the number of living donor transplants in the United States.

To learn more about the Kidney Transplant Collaborative and the Living Organ Volunteer Engagement (LOVE) Act, visit www.kidneytransplantcollaborative.com/love-act/.

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The Kidney Transplant Collaborative (KTC) is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing kidney transplants and decreasing financial obstacles and other problems kidney patients, donors, and their families experience with the kidney transplant process. For more details, visit the KTC website at www.kidneytransplantcollaborative.com