Congressman Krishnamoorthi Hails Biden Administration Plans For Organ Transplant System Overhaul Following His Investigation Which Exposed Waste, Fraud, And Abuse In The System

WASHINGTON – Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, who led a groundbreaking investigation into waste, fraud, and abuse in the U.S. organ procurement system and its organ procurement organizations (OPOs) as Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer policy, issued the following statement in response to the system overhaul plan recently announced by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) :

"I'm glad to see the Health Resources and Services Administration has announced these important reforms to our nation's organ procurement system which will address the deeply concerning revelations of my investigation into the enormous waste, fraud, and abuse present in many organ procurement organizations. At a time when nearly 104,000 Americans are on waiting lists for organs and 22 people die each day waiting for a transplant, the need to implement these reforms to improve accountability, data transparency, and oversight in the organ procurement system is clear. The plan put forth by the HRSA and the Biden Administration will improve our organ transplant system and save lives. I urge my colleagues in Congress, from both parties, to work closely with the HRSA to implement this overhaul, including by passing President Biden's proposal to expand competition, innovation, and accountability among organ procurement organizations."

In December 2020, as Chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, Congressman Krishnamoorthi launched an investigation in the nation's organ procurement system that revealed how OPOs are failing to adequately secure organs for transplant, leaving hundreds of thousands of Americans seeking organ transplants without essential healthcare. Based on this information, the Congressman led a hearing on May 4, 2021 on the failures of the current system with patients waiting on the transplant list, a transplantation expert, and multiple representatives of OPOs. Following the hearing, the Subcommittee requested data from OPOs related to the three key steps in the organ procurement process—referral, approach, and authorization. An OPO's failure at any point in this process can prevent a successful transplant, and researchers estimate that large numbers of potential organs are lost because of failures by OPOs. In September 2021, Congressman Krishnamoorthi and Congresswoman Katie Porter opened a new front of their investigation on the serious OPO conflicts of interest left unaddressed by existing regulations.

Following the OPOs' initial data productions, new reporting and documents obtained by the Subcommittee have heightened concerns about how OPOs and the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS)—a nonprofit agency that contracts with the U.S. government—collect and manage data related to the organ donation process. UNOS runs the database that OPOs use to share information about available organs and match donors with recipients, a system that relies on OPOs to provide complete and accurate data, and OPOs across the country rely on that data to serve patients. On July 31, 2022, the Washington Postreported that a review done by the United States Digital Service (USDS) found the UNOS organ sharing system was plagued by significant data collection, sharing, and transparency issues. The USDS report, which was the focus of an August 2022 Senate Finance Committee hearing, concluded that "the organ transplantation system in this country is not set up to enable the best outcomes for patients waiting for life-saving transplants." A secondary staff memo prepared by USDS and obtained by the Congressman's subcommittee concluded that a "single source of truth for data does not exist" within the U.S. organ sharing ecosystem. Noting that the data systems used by OPOs and UNOS rely significantly on the manual entry of large quantities of data, USDS staff concluded that errors likely contribute to "current waste issues in the transplant ecosystem" and poor outcomes for patients.

In light of the serious data collection and management issues across the organ-sharing community, Congressman Krishnamoorthi followed up on his concerns regarding the quality of OPO data productions accuracy and completeness, leading him to send a new series of letters to 11 OPOs with Congresswoman Porter in November 2022. In these letters, the members requested information and documents related to the OPOs' data collection practices as well as any supplemental data necessary to address deficiencies or inaccuracies in the data previously provided to the Subcommittee as part of Congressman Krishnamoorthi's efforts to bring accountability to the organ transplant system and transparency to the performance of OPOs.