Members of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) would have to pay registration fees to the federal government under legislation cosponsored on Feb. 12 by U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA).
“Continuing our efforts to reform the U.S. organ transplant system is vital to saving lives,” said Sen. Cassidy, chairman of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. “This legislation takes additional steps to improve the system and ensure more Americans can access lifesaving organs.”
Specifically, the OPTN Fee Collection Authority Act, S. 532, which is sponsored by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), would authorize the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to collect the registration fees from OPTN member institutions in an effort to maintain the improved organ transplant system, according to a bill summary provided by the lawmakers.
The OPTN is a federal program, founded in 1984 and housed under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ HRSA, that’s responsible for coordinating all organ donations and transplants nationwide. For 40 years, the OPTN was operated by a single contractor, the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).
In 2023, Sens. Cassidy and Grassley authored and successfully got 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, according to the summary.
Previously, UNOS collected all OPTN registration fees from organ procurement organizations, transplant hospitals, and other member institutions.
The newly proposed S. 532 would provide 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 senators said, and would require a Government Accountability Office report to Congress within two years of the bill’s passage.