New OPTN fees could reshape transplant access—with little upfront clarity on cost.
S. 2751 — Permanent OPTN Fee Authority Act · Filed by Ron Wyden (D-OR) · Introduced Sep 10, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to charge registration fees to members of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) for each transplant candidate they list. The fees must be used only to support OPTN operations, posted publicly by member and activity, and reviewed by the Government Accountability Office within two years. The bill also requires OPTN to consider creating a public dashboard showing transplant statistics and organ utilization data.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a new fee-collection authority for OPTN operations, paired with mandatory public reporting and GAO review. It is primarily a governance and funding reform, not a substantive policy change to transplant medicine or allocation rules.
What the text implies
- Fee structure may incentivize OPTN members to list fewer candidates to avoid fees, potentially reducing transplant access if not carefully calibrated.
- Dashboard requirement may expose disparities in organ utilization and transplant outcomes by center, creating pressure for performance improvement but also potential liability concerns.
- Discretionary offsetting collections model means fees do not automatically fund OPTN; Congress must appropriate them separately, creating uncertainty about actual revenue availability.
- No fee cap or ceiling specified; HHS has discretion to set fees at levels that could significantly burden transplant centers, particularly smaller or rural programs.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens benefit from improved OPTN transparency (public dashboard, quarterly fee reporting) and GAO oversight, which may improve organ allocation efficiency and accountability. However, the fee structure may indirectly increase costs for transplant centers, which could be passed to patients or insurers, and the bill does not cap fees or guarantee that cost increases will not reduce access for lower-income patients.
Who stands to gain
- Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (public entity)
- HHS Department (offsetting collections)
Named in the bill
Secretary of Health and Human Services, Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), Department of Health and Human Services, Government Accountability Office (GAO), Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Senate Committee on Finance, House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Public Health Service Act Section 372
Where it stands
- Sep 10, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Sep 10, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $410,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 12 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Ron Wyden, the sponsor, reported $375,070 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Kidney Fund — $410,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (3,303 characters) on Aug 31, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“New OPTN fees could reshape transplant access—with little upfront clarity on cost.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s2751 Report an error
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