Sponsors (23)
The bill strengthens and clarifies disability nondiscrimination and accommodation requirements in organ transplantation—improving access and enforcement for many patients—while imposing new compliance, legal, and operational burdens on providers and creating potential variability and complexity across jurisdictions.
People with disabilities (including patients with chronic conditions) gain explicit nondiscrimination protections in transplant programs and a right to auxiliary aids, reasonable modifications, and supported decision‑making so they are not excluded from transplant consideration solely because of disability.
Patients who need transplants (including those with disabilities) get clearer access to evaluation, listing, counseling, treatment and post‑operative services as ‘related services,’ improving continuity of care around transplantation.
Patients with disabilities may have increased chances of receiving organs and better health/survival outcomes because exclusion based on disability is explicitly prohibited and reasonable accommodations can help meet post‑transplant requirements.
Hospitals and transplant programs (health systems) will likely face added compliance costs to provide auxiliary aids, reasonable modifications, supported decision‑making, and revised procedures.
Providers and programs may face increased legal and administrative burdens — including litigation risk and disputes over clinical judgment versus nondiscrimination standards — which could slow policy changes and raise costs.
Where state or local law differs, providers and insurers may confront complexity and compliance burdens from varying rules, and patients may experience geographic disparities in transplant‑related rights and access.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Prohibits disability-based discrimination in organ transplant eligibility, allocation criteria, referrals, listings, and related services and requires reasonable accommodations unless undue burden or fundamental alteration applies.
Official title: Prohibit discrimination on the basis of mental or physical disability in cases of organ transplants.
Introduced May 15, 2025 by Ashley Brooke Moody · Last progress May 15, 2025
Requires entities that run or fund organ transplant programs to prohibit disability-based discrimination in access to transplants, related evaluations, referrals, listings, and services, and to provide reasonable modifications and auxiliary aids unless doing so causes undue burden or fundamental alteration. It also amends organ allocation law to bar disability-discriminatory medical criteria and directs HHS Office for Civil Rights to prioritize complaints and report annually to Congress on enforcement activity.