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House Oversight Hearing Showcases Harrowing Whistleblower Accounts and Calls to Rework OPO Oversight
Summary
Witnesses at a House Ways and Means oversight hearing described cases of missed donor screening, coerced consent and a CMS accounting loophole that may have led to thousands of pancreases being recovered but not used; lawmakers pressed HHS, CMS and HRSA for faster decertification and greater transparency.
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers pressed federal health officials on Wednesday to act quickly after witnesses described practices at some organ procurement organizations (OPOs) that they said put patients and donor families at risk and distorted performance metrics.
The House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee heard testimony from a recipient family, former OPO staff and outside experts who described cases in which organs were recovered despite later findings of donor disease, alleged coerced consent of grieving families and a regulatory loophole that has allowed OPOs to count organs recovered for “research” toward performance metrics.
The hearing focused on individual harm and systemic incentives. ‘‘Our prayers were answered on 10/29/2022 when a donor match was found,’’ witness Heather Hollis Knuckles said of her mother’s transplant; five days after surgery, Barnes Hospital pathology told her family the donor liver contained high‑grade metastatic cancer and her mother died weeks later. Knuckles asked the committee…
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