Living Donor Nephrectomy – Donation Process

Transcript

Those who wish to donate a kidney must contact our transplant center on their own and without coercion. The first step is a phone interview with our donor coordinator. We’ll do an initial short screening and then a living donor advocate will contact the living donor and make sure that the person is safe to donate and is donating without coercion. It’s really important to know that all the costs of testing for living donation is paid for by the recipient’s insurance. So people wishing to donate need to be up to date on their health maintenance, but they should have no expenses related to testing that has to do with the workup of being a donor. There’s a lot of programs right now that reimburse lost wages for people who wish to donate if they incur a time loss at work or a time loss during surgery and recovery. A lot of employers will pay for a hundred percent paid leave for donors once they recovered. If the donor’s employer does not support that, we can apply to some programs that can help the donor make sure that they have no barriers to donation.