Federal regulators have finalized a rule for a mandatory care model to increase access to kidney transplants for people living with end-stage renal disease, improve the quality of kidney transplant care, and reduce disparities among kidney transplant patients.
The Nov. 26 final rule for the Increasing Organ Transplant Access Model (IOTA) from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) also seeks to increase the efficiency of selected transplant hospitals.
The model will run for six years, starting on July 1, 2025. CMS published a list of the 103 hospitals required to participate, including at least 20 members of America’s Essential Hospitals. The agency made several changes in the final IOTA rule, including:
- Increasing the maximum upside payment from $8,000 to $15,000 per case
- Adjusting transplant targets to reflect the average number of deceased or living transplants during baseline years
- Removing three quality measures under the quality domain
CMS did not finalize proposed transparency requirements, which would have required participants to inform beneficiaries of the number of times and reasons why an organ is declined on the Medicare beneficiary’s behalf.
The association submitted comments to CMS in July on the proposed IOTA Model rule, urging the agency to consider the unique role essential hospitals play in providing transplant care to underserved populations.
Contact Director of Policy Rob Nelb, MPH, at rnelb@essentialhospitals.org or 202.585.0127 with questions.
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