Reimbursement for living kidney donor follow-up care:  how often does donor insurance pay?
BACKGROUND
Currently, many transplantation centers do not follow former living kidney donors on a long-term basis. Several potential barriers have been identified to provide this follow-up of former living kidney donors, including concerns that donor insurance will not reimburse transplantation centers or primary care physicians for this care. Here, we report the rates at which different insurance companies reimbursed our transplantation center for follow-up visits of living donors.


METHODS
We collected data on all yearly follow-up visits of living donors billed from January 1, 2007, to December 31, 2010, representing 82 different donors. Concurrent visits of their recipients were available for 47 recipients and were used as a control group.


RESULTS
We find that most bills for follow-up visits of living kidney donors were paid by insurance companies, at a rate similar to the reimbursement for recipient follow-up care.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings suggest that, for former donors with insurance, inadequate reimbursement should not be a barrier in providing follow-up care.
Transplant Institute, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
Ajay
A
Kher
James
J
Rodrigue
Maria
M
Ajaimy
Marcy
M
Wasilewski
Keren
K
Ladin
Didier
D
Mandelbrot
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D017048:Health Care Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007349:Insurance, Health, Reimbursement / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016030:Kidney Transplantation / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019520:Living Donors; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D058007:Physicians, Primary Care / Q000191:economics; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D009927:Tissue and Organ Procurement / Q000191:economics; D014180:Transplantation