WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced legislation to enable the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)’s continued implementation of the senators’ life-saving reforms to the U.S. organ transplant system. The OPTN Fee Collection Authority Act would authorize HRSA to collect registration fees from OPTN member institutions, ensuring HRSA’s ability to maintain the improved organ transplant system.
“Continuing our efforts to reform the U.S. organ transplant system is vital to saving lives,” said Dr. Cassidy. “This legislation takes additional steps to improve the system and ensure more Americans can access lifesaving organs.”
“It’s critically important our organ transplant system operates safely and efficiently, because lives hang in the balance. I was proud to lead reforms to our antiquated organ transplant system, and have been closely following HRSA’s implementation of the law at every turn. This latest fix will ensure HRSA has the tools it needs to implement the law as Congress intended, and patients receive the care they need,” said Senator Grassley.
Background:
The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) is a federal program, founded in 1984 and housed under the Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), that is responsible for coordinating all organ donations and transplants nationwide. For 40 years, the OPTN was operated by a single, deficient contractor – the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).
In 2023, Cassidy and Grassley authored and passed a bipartisan law to break up the OPTN contract, resulting in the first competitive bidding process for OPTN contracts in the program’s nearly half-a-century history. Previously, UNOS, as the sole OPTN contractor, collected all OPTN registration fees from Organ Procurement Organizations, transplant hospitals and other member institutions. The legislation provides HRSA explicit legal authority to collect these fees, rooting out UNOS’ and any other contractors’ undue influence and safeguarding the revamped program’s operation. The bill also requires a Government Accountability Office report to Congress within two years of the bill’s passage.
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