CMS Strives to Increase Access to Transplant with New Model

The Increasing Organ Transplant Access (IOTA), through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) seeks to increase access to transplant through incentive opportunities for transplant hospitals and measurement based on number of transplants, organ acceptance rates and outcomes. Notably, aspects of the IOTA Model would promote health equity in the process since access to organ transplantation is often impacted by race and other socio-demographic characteristics. Toward this goal, two of the features the model would include a health equity adjustment for transplants performed on certain low-income populations and allow flexibilities to address social drivers of health.