Sponsors (4)
The bill aims to increase living-donor kidney transplants and potentially reduce long-term dialysis costs by funding facilitator training and oversight, but it raises near-term Medicare spending, may concentrate services at larger transplant centers, and introduces implementation and waiver risks to beneficiary protections.
Medicare beneficiaries with end-stage renal disease gain trained facilitators to help identify living kidney donors, potentially increasing access to transplants and reducing time on dialysis.
Increased living-donor transplants could lower long-term Medicare spending by replacing costly dialysis with transplant care, reducing future taxpayer burden and improving fiscal sustainability.
Hospitals that run facilitator training programs receive annual payments covering reasonable costs, reducing financial barriers to offering the program and encouraging provider participation.
The demonstration's payments increase Medicare spending in the near term, raising federal outlays that are ultimately funded by taxpayers.
Limiting eligibility to hospitals that perform kidney transplants may exclude smaller or community hospitals, concentrating services at larger centers and reducing local access—particularly for rural communities.
Program success and projected benefits (more donors/transplants and cost savings) depend on implementation details; actual outcomes are uncertain until the demonstration is evaluated.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates an 8-year Medicare demonstration paying transplant hospitals to run living kidney donor facilitator training, reimbursing reasonable program costs.
Official title: To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to establish a demonstration program to provide payment under the Medicare program for living kidney donor transplant facilitator training.
Introduced February 13, 2026 by Nicole Malliotakis · Last progress February 13, 2026
Creates an 8-year Medicare demonstration that pays eligible kidney transplant hospitals for operating living kidney donor facilitator training programs. The Secretary must set up the demonstration within 180 days and annually reimburse each participating hospital for the program’s reasonable costs; the program trains facilitators to help Medicare beneficiaries with end-stage renal disease identify prospective living kidney donors and to help donor beneficiaries navigate donation. The Secretary must report multi-year outcomes and updates to relevant congressional committees.