Cost of kidney donation

What is living donation? Living donation is a type of kidney transplant where a living person donates one of their two healthy kidneys to a person living with kidney disease. A living donor is the person who donates their healthy kidney. There are two types of living donation: • Directed donation is when the living donor chooses the specific person with kidney disease who they want to donate their kidney to, such as a family member or friend. • Non-directed donation is when the living donor does not have a specific person they will donate their kidney to. Instead, they donate their kidney to a stranger, such as through a paired kidney exchange program. Who can donate a kidney? To be a living kidney donor, you must: • Be age 18 or older • Have two healthy, working kidneys • Be healthy enough to donate How do I know if I am healthy enough to donate a kidney? You will need to have a full health evaluation at the transplant center. You will meet with many members of the donor evaluation team. This team is specially assigned to work with you as a possible living donor and includes members similar to those on the transplant team. The evaluation will help your donor evaluation team decide if you are ready and healthy enough to be a living kidney donor. As part of the evaluation, you will have many tests and exams, such as: • Blood tests, such as to learn your blood and tissue types • Urine tests • Heart and lung tests • Blood pressure check • A spiral CT (computed tomography) sca...

To ask about being a living donor, you can also contact a transplant center in your area. To find a list of all transplant centers in the U.S., visit the . Then follow these steps: • Select "Transplant Centers by Organ" under Member Type • Select "Kidney" for Organ Type • Select your state or region

Being a living kidney donor can be very rewarding. You may get to help a loved one regain their health, give a friend the chance to get off dialysis or even save a stranger's life. If you are a person with kidney disease and trying to decide if a transplant is right for you, you might be wondering how it could affect your life. Below, learn about the financial implications of kidney donation. Who pays for the cost of kidney donation? Medicare, or the kidney recipient's private insurance, will cover the direct costs of kidney donation such as medical testing, surgery and some medicines for the kidney recipient. However, there are some indirect costs of donating a kidney that Medicare or private insurance may not cover, such as travel costs or lost wages due to taking time off work. Does insurance cover the costs? Medicare or the kidney recipient's private insurance will cover the medical costs of testing and surgery, both for the kidney donor and recipient. However, most insurance plans do not cover: • Time off from work or the cost of childcare. However, donors and recipients may qualify for sick leave, disability pay or paid family leave (FMLA). • Meals • Parking and gas • Hotel costs during testing, surgery and recovery. However, some transplant hospitals offer free or low-cost housing. • Travel costs, such as plane tickets What other costs can there be for kidney donors? Sometimes, donating a kidney can affect the donor's ability to get or afford disability or life insu...

Kidney donation has few long-term risks for generally healthy people. But there are risks. Kidney donation may slightly increase your risk of one day having kidney failure. This is especially true for Black men. But the increase in risk is small. There's a less than 1% chance of future kidney failure after kidney donation. Before you donate a kidney, you need a full medical exam. Your health care provider checks to see if you're a good match for the person who might get the kidney. You'll also be checked to make sure you don't have any health problems that could be made worse by donating a kidney. Kidney donation involves major surgery. Risks of major surgery include bleeding and infection. But most kidney donors recover with few or no problems. After having the surgery to remove a kidney (nephrectomy), you may stay 1 to 2 nights in the hospital. The rest of your recovery is typically completed at home. With time, the kidney you have left gets a little bigger as it takes on extra blood flow and works to filter wastes. The long-term survival rate after kidney donation is about the same as that for generally healthy people who aren't kidney donors. After kidney donation, it's important to have regular health checkups. These include kidney function tests and blood pressure checks. • Grams ME, et al. Kidney-failure risk projection for the living kidney-donor candidate. The New England Journal of Medicine. 2016; doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1510491. • Lentine KL, et al. Kidney transplanta...