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National Kidney Registry will reimburse donors for lost wages
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On August 5, the National Kidney Registry announced it will reimburse those who donated a kidney through its paired kidney exchange program for wages lost due to recovery time.
According to a press release, the National Kidney Registry (NKR) will achieve this by providing donors with Donor Shield protections, which also include travel and lodging reimbursement, life insurance, disability insurance, legal support and coverage for complications. Donors will also be prioritized for future living donor transplant if needed.
“As one of the first centers to implement Donor Shield, we are thrilled that this program can be provided to all NKR donors because it is the right thing to do,” Nicole Turgeon, MD, surgical director of the Living Donor Kidney Transplant Program at Emory, said in the release. “We often see situations where potential donors are not able to go through with donation due to the cost of lost wages during the 2- to 4-week surgical recovery.”
Following NKR’s implementation of Donor Shield protections, 1,000 living kidney donors will now be covered annually, which amounts to approximately one sixth of all living donors in the United States.
“Reimbursing donors for lost wages is the right thing to do for the wonderful people who are donating a part of their body to save/improve the lives of people suffering from kidney failure,” Robert Redfield, MD, FACS, associate director of Kidney Transplant at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said. “We recently implemented Donor Shield at our transplant center and it has been very well received. Providing Donor Shield coverage to all donors involved in NKR swaps is an exciting development and furthers the momentum generated by President Trump’s executive order to support transplantation.”
References:
www.donorcarenet.org/programs/