Outrage! Hospitals recklessly squandering donated organs
Each day you’re a little sicker and a little more stressed. You stare at your telephone, practically begging for it to ring.
If you or a loved one has ever waited for an organ transplant — or if you’re currently waiting — you know it’s the most agonizing experience of your life.
But what you may not know is that a perfectly good organ may be sitting in your local hospital right now… in a trash bin.
Hospitals are throwing out untold numbers of good organs every single year.
And it’s all thanks to a disgusting government program that practically encourages hospitals to let patients die.
“Gut-wrenching and mind-boggling.”
That’s how transplant surgeon Dr. Adel Bozorgzadeh describes the routine practice of hospitals throwing out donated organs.
I would go even further and call it criminal.
Not so long ago, if you were desperately ill and in need of an organ to save your life, you would automatically go to the top of the transplant list.
The sickest would be cared for first.
But all that started to change nearly 10 years ago, when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) set transplant standards that based Medicare funding on federal hospital ratings.
You see, hospitals get a big chunk of their funding from Medicare. And if they don’t get good transplant ratings, that funding takes a hit.
So instead of focusing on patients, hospitals changed their focus to ratings.
And that’s when this so-called government “incentive” started turning deadly.
Research by Dr. Bozorgzadeh, from UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, found that hospitals have become so dedicated to scoring high CMS ratings that they’re throwing away less-than-perfect organs and denying organ transplants to the patients who need them most.
So if you’re really sick — and could struggle with your recovery and hurt a hospital’s ratings — you may be out of luck.
How disgusting is that?
In the five years between 2007 and 2012, when the new CMS standards were adopted, more than 4,300 candidates for organ transplants were kicked off of hospital waiting lists. That’s nearly a 90 percent jump compared to those taken off waiting lists in the five years prior.
What that means is: if you need an organ and you’re relatively young and in otherwise good health, you have a decent chance of getting one in first-class condition. But if you’re older and have other health issues, you’re far less likely to be the recipient of an A+ organ.
Well then, how about a less-then-perfect organ? Even if one is available, they’re not apt to give it to you, either. That’s because as a higher risk patient, you’re more likely to suffer complications and setbacks that will put you back at the hospital — or worse. And that, in turn, will lower the hospital’s rating.
Partly in response to Dr. Bozorgzadeh’s study, CMS recently promised to ease up on sanctions for hospital transplant centers that didn’t score high ratings. Experts thought that might offer a glimmer of hope that this mess can be turned around.
But, instead, when CMS released its most recent ratings, it continued to punish hospitals that perform more risky transplants.
In other words, absolutely nothing has improved.
I hope you never find yourself in such dire straits that you require an organ transplant. But if you do, you should be aware that most hospitals have patient advocacy programs staffed with professionals who can help cut through red tape.
That doesn’t guarantee you’ll get an organ, of course. But until CMS figures out how to reform this broken system, you at least have some way to figure out your options.
And one of those options could be a different hospital that isn’t so beholden to funding from CMS ratings.
You can also look here for more information about patient advocacy.
Sources:
“Hospitals are throwing out organs and denying transplants to meet federal standards” Casey Ross, August 11, 2016, Stat, statnews.com
