Commercial payers, transplant programs and other key stakeholders will gather Sept. 14 in New Orleans for an in-person meeting of The Alliance’s Transplant Payer Collaborative, an ongoing national initiative focused on improving dialogue, education and problem-solving around transplant finance, reimbursement and patient access.
Launched in 2025, the Collaborative was created as a dedicated platform for payers, transplant programs, health care professionals and other stakeholders to address knowledge gaps, reduce barriers and improve cooperation across the transplant system. Its core objectives include facilitating ongoing education, creating opportunities for dialogue with commercial payers and other stakeholders such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and ensuring a broad range of perspectives are represented in the discussion.
The Sept. 14 meeting, held in conjunction with the 2026 National Critical Issues Forum, will build on that work with discussions spanning federal policy, emerging clinical innovation and strategies to grow living donation.
“The Transplant Payer Collaborative was created to bring people into the same room who often approach transplantation from very different perspectives,” said Andrea Tietjen, AVP of Transplant for Cooperman Barnabas Hospital in New Jersey. Tietjen also serves as an Alliance Board Member and founding member of the Transplant Payer Collaborative. “Those conversations are essential. When payers, transplant leaders and other stakeholders have a stronger understanding of one another’s priorities and constraints, we are better positioned to identify practical solutions that support patients and strengthen transplant programs.”
Federal Policy and the Future of Transplant Care
The meeting agenda will include an update on the Collaborative’s work, followed by a review of a recent CMS final rule.
Participants will then turn to a subject with potentially far-reaching implications for transplantation: xenotransplantation. Jeffery Stern, MD, associate director of transplant surgery at NYU Langone Health, will lead a session examining what the future may hold as the field considers the clinical and operational implications of transplanting organs from genetically modified animals into humans.
The combination reflects one of the Collaborative’s central goals: creating a forum where stakeholders can discuss both immediate policy questions and longer-term developments that may affect transplant care, coverage and reimbursement.
A Closer Look at Living Donation
The second half of the agenda will focus on living donation and kidney paired donation, areas in which transplant programs continue to pursue opportunities for growth.
Matthew Cooper, MD, chief of transplantation and director of the Solid Organ Transplant Service Line at the Medical College of Wisconsin, will examine current trends in living donation and kidney paired donation. Dianne LaPointe Rudow, ANP-BC, DNP, FAAN, director of the Center for Living Donation at The Mount Sinai Hospital, will then provide an overview of the National Kidney Paired Donation System.
Cooper and LaPointe Rudow will close the afternoon with an open discussion on growing living and paired donation, giving participants an opportunity to consider how clinical, operational and financial factors intersect as programs work to increase transplant opportunities.
Building a Common Understanding
At its launch, The Alliance identified a central challenge the Collaborative is designed to address: a knowledge gap between transplant leaders and the payer community. The initiative provides a structured setting for participants to better understand how clinical decisions, reimbursement models, regulatory requirements and administrative processes affect one another.
That cross-sector dialogue is particularly important as transplant programs work to expand access while managing increasingly complex financial and operational demands.
“No one perspective captures the full transplant journey,” says Karri Hobson-Pape, Executive Director of The Alliance. “The value of this Collaborative is in hearing directly from the people responsible for different parts of that journey, asking difficult questions and identifying where greater understanding or alignment can remove barriers for patients.”
Meeting Information
The Transplant Payer Collaborative Fall Meeting is one of four specialty pre-meeting programs offered in advance of the 2026 National Critical Issues Forum, taking place Sept. 15-16 in New Orleans.
The meeting will be held Monday, Sept. 14, from 1 to 5 p.m. CT, with a welcome lunch beginning at noon.
Attendance is limited to registered National Critical Issues Forum attendees. Participation requires separate add-on registration during the Forum registration process, and space may be limited.
