90,000 people are waiting for a kidney. Here's one way to get them a kidney faster.

The Medicare Increasing Organ Transplant Access Model

Did you know that a leading cause of death in the United States is chronic kidney disease, which affects almost 15% of adults and can lead to kidney failure? Dialysis is a lifesaving treatment for kidney failure, but requires the patient to be hooked to a dialysis machine for hours at a time, often for several days each week.

At any given time, nearly 90,000 people in the United States are waiting for a kidney transplant, and 11 people die every day waiting for a kidney.

This cannot continue. That’s why UNOS supports public policy changes to make more kidney transplants possible for Medicare patients.

In late 2024, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released its proposal to help, called the Increasing Organ Transplant Access (IOTA) Model, which will study ways to increase the number of kidney transplants and improve the quality of care for kidney patients. The model will test and determine how financial incentives – and disincentives – for transplant hospitals impact the number of transplants, care quality and equity.

One of the key patient-focused aspects of the IOTA model, advocated for by UNOS, is the requirement for transplant centers to publish the criteria they use to determine whether to add a patient to the kidney transplant waitlist. UNOS believes this is critical to improving transparency for the process and ensuring that the system is patient-centric.

The IOTA model will go into effect on July 1, 2025, and will be in place for six years. UNOS is working with the kidney donation and transplant community to develop products and tools to help transplant hospitals track the IOTA metrics.

Although it is yet to be seen how the change from the Biden to the Trump administration could change the IOTA model or the approach to achieving the goal to increase transplants, UNOS will continue working with the federal government and the organ donation and transplant community to increase transplants and help more people get the lifesaving transplants they need.