Sponsors (19)
The bill expands enforceable civil‑rights protections and accommodation requirements so people with disabilities have clearer, more equitable access to organ transplants, but it raises provider administrative and healthcare costs, creates some privacy and enforcement complexity, and may produce geographic variability in practical access.
People with disabilities: explicit prohibition on denying or removing someone from transplant lists solely because of a disability, expanding enforceable anti‑discrimination protections.
People with disabilities and transplant candidates: guaranteed access to reasonable modifications, auxiliary aids, and supported‑decision‑making so they can meet eligibility and receive transplant services.
Hospitals and transplant centers: clearer federal rules that prohibit categorical disability exclusions and promote individualized eligibility assessments, reducing legal uncertainty and promoting consistent decisionmaking across evaluation, listing, transplant, and post‑transplant stages.
Hospitals, transplant programs, and providers: increased administrative, compliance, and accommodation costs to provide individualized evaluations, reasonable modifications, auxiliary aids, and to respond to enforcement actions.
Taxpayers, insurers, and payers: potential for higher short‑term transplant and post‑operative costs and broader coverage obligations that could raise premiums or public healthcare spending if more disabled individuals receive transplants.
Patients (especially in rural or underresourced areas) and multi‑state providers: unequal access and compliance complexity because reliance on support networks, local HCBS availability, and differing state/local standards can create geographic variability in who can meet post‑transplant support requirements.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Bars transplant boards and hospitals from denying transplant access to qualified people with disabilities solely because of disability and requires reasonable supports, modifications, and individualized medical evaluations.
Introduced May 15, 2025 by Ashley Brooke Moody · Last progress May 15, 2025
Prohibits transplant boards and transplant hospitals from denying or limiting a person’s access to organ transplantation solely because they have a disability. It requires hospitals and other covered health providers to consider reasonable modifications, supported decision‑making, and support networks so qualified people with disabilities can be evaluated, listed, transplanted, and receive post‑transplant care. The law preserves a narrow medical exception when a treating physician, after an individualized evaluation, finds a disability is medically significant to the transplant; it also requires covered entities to provide auxiliary aids and reasonable policy modifications unless doing so would fundamentally alter services or create an undue burden. Individuals may file discrimination complaints with HHS’s Office for Civil Rights for expedited review in addition to other available remedies.