High costs might be a possible reason for decline in living kidney donations in the United States, a new research reveals.
A research published in the upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology showed that low income is a major detractor for live kidney donations. And the problem is growing over time.
There are considerable financial costs to donating a kidney though, with an average estimated cost of $5000 and some reports citing costs as high as $20,000, researchers noted.
For their study, Jagbir Gill, MD, MPH of University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, and his colleagues divided the US population based on the average household income level of residents' zip codes. They analyzed the rates of living donation between 1999 and 2010 in high and low income populations.
The results showed that people with lower income consistently had lower rates of living donation compared to those from the higher income group. Researchers also found that the difference in living donation rates between lower and higher income populations had increased over the years.
"Since 2004, lower income populations experienced a large decline in living donation, while living donation in higher income populations was more stable," Dr Gill said in a press release. "These results suggest that financial barriers to living donation need to be further addressed in order to make it easier for patients to consider and pursue living kidney donation."
The study results show that there is a need for proper understanding of the financial barriers to living donation and to develop more effective strategies to overcome them. Cost of per living kidney donation in a net health care savings is around $100,000
The study comes after a recent research that showed that living kidney donors often face post-donation problems with regards to changing health or life insurance. Researchers at The Johns Hopkins stated that among 395 donors they studied, 7 percent faced problems with the insurance. Around 15 were denied health insurance altogether, 12 were charged a higher premium and eight were told that donating a kidney was a "pre-existing condition."
