Sponsors
The bill increases transparency and aims to stabilize OPTN funding for transplant oversight, but it may shift costs onto hospitals or patients and create budgetary offsets or funding timing risks that could limit other programs or timely award distributions.
Transplant candidates and patients gain more timely, quarterly visibility into transplant activity via a dashboard and related reporting, helping them monitor waitlist activity and outcomes more frequently than annual updates.
Hospitals, patients, and the public receive greater financial transparency and accountability because HHS must post quarterly the amounts of OPTN fees collected and the activities funded, and GAO review/reporting is required to identify inefficiencies.
OPTN operations can rely on steadier funding because collected fees remain available until expended, reducing the risk of funding interruptions from annual reauthorization cycles.
Hospitals and transplant centers may face new per-candidate registration fees, increasing their operational costs.
If OPTN fees are passed through to patients or insurers, transplant candidates could face higher out-of-pocket or insurance costs for evaluation and listing.
Conditioning fee distributions on future appropriations could delay or limit timely funding to OPTN awardees despite fees being collected, undermining the intended steady funding effect.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Allows HHS to collect per-candidate registration fees from OPTN members, requires quarterly public reporting and GAO review, and calls for a more frequently updated transplant dashboard.
Introduced September 10, 2025 by Ronald Lee Wyden · Last progress September 10, 2025
Authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to charge a registration fee to any Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) member for each transplant candidate placed on the national waiting list, requires quarterly public reporting of fee amounts and supported activities, and directs a GAO review and report within two years. It also directs the OPTN to consider a transplant dashboard that is updated more frequently than annually. The bill specifies how collected fees are handled (credited to HHS accounts as discretionary offsetting collections, available until expended) and limits distributions to OPTN awardees to amounts provided in advance by appropriations Acts, increasing transparency and federal oversight of fee use.