Challenges, Innovations, and Next Steps in Achieving Financial Neutrality for Living Donors
- PDF / 349,094 Bytes
- 8 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 49 Downloads / 180 Views
LIVE KIDNEY DONATION (K LENTINE AND R SCHAFFER, SECTION EDITORS)
Challenges, Innovations, and Next Steps in Achieving Financial Neutrality for Living Donors Michael Mittelman 1 & Rebecca Bertha 1 & Ken Sutha 1,2
# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Purpose of Review Recent national attention on living kidney donation brings renewed focus on policy related to alleviating financial burdens for donors, reducing out-of-pocket expenses incurred in the donation process, and optimizing follow-up care. This review examines the Advancing American Kidney Health Executive Order and its potential to improve financial neutrality for living organ donors. Recent Findings Available research, including single and multi-center studies, demonstrate that living donors face financial burdens in the donation process, which may be decreased by covering lost wages and expenses related to dependent care. Drawing from these findings, recent consensus statements and subsequent federal guidance proposed interventions to reduce financial barriers for living donors. Summary Policy efforts to improve financial neutrality for living donors can help remove disincentives to donation and facilitate more living donor transplantations. The outcome of policy changes should be monitored to determine impact and identify further areas of attention, including increasing reimbursement caps and liberalizing donor and recipient income limits. Keywords Living donor . Living donation . Cost of care . Organ donation . Advancing American Kidney Health . Financial neutrality . Kidney transplant
Introduction Financial neutrality for living donors, sometimes referred to as cost-neutral living donation, can be achieved when donors neither profit nor lose financially as a result of the donation process. Although donation-related medical costs are typically covered by recipient insurance during the evaluation and surgery, the burden of non-medical, donation-related expenses for the donor, particularly lost wages and unanticipated postdonation costs, are not reimbursed under most insurance coverage. Although the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 (NOTA) makes clear that organs can be neither bought nor
This article is part of the Topical Collection on Live Kidney Donation * Michael Mittelman [email protected] 1
American Living Organ Donor Fund (ALODF), Philadelphia, PA, USA
2
Division of Nephrology, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
sold and that living donors may not financially benefit from organ donation, federal law allows for deferment or reimbursement of the non-medical costs donors incur during the donation process [1, 2]. Recipients of living kidney donation are able to reimburse these additional non-medical donation expenses; but, not all those requiring a transplant have the means and resources to do so, as kidney patients often face their own financial burdens [1, 3]. Policy centered on helping living donors and increasing access to transplantation has been proposed and passed into legis
Data Loading...
