What I Found Out About Organ Donation Shocked Me
By Greg Segal
Mr. Segal is the founder and chief executive of Organize, a nonprofit focused on reforming the organ donation system.
"I founded Organize, a nonprofit making it easier to register to become an organ donor. In 2015, Organize was selected for a role embedded inside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which put us on the radar of whistle-blowers. I soon became inundated with allegations from people working inside the organ donation industry who felt they had nowhere else to turn.
"I know as well as anyone that organ donation saves lives — over 40,000 annually in the United States in recent years. But I was stunned to learn that organ procurement organizations — the federal contractors that coordinate organ donation from the deceased — that made those transplants possible were routinely violating ethical standards and putting patients at risk.
"I heard allegations of negligence and financial fraud, including industry executives’ billing taxpayers for joyrides on private jets meant to transport organs; of organizations performing unnecessary procedures as part of a scheme to overbill Medicare. (Organ procurement organizations are nonprofits, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t trying to maximize financial reimbursements.) I’ve heard of poorer Americans waiting to receive organs passed over in favor of wealthier ones.
"But one case in particular led me to remove myself from the donor registry and testify before Congress."
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He goes on to recount one of the most disturbing cases reported recently in the NYT (which I think were at least in part uncovered through the work of his Organization).
See
Friday, June 6, 2025 Disturbing NYT report about an Organ Procurement Organization in Kentucky
and
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