New Liver Allocation Policy and National Liver Transplant Volume

In February 2020, a new liver transplant (LT) allocation system was implemented using concentric circles of 500 nautical miles from the donor hospital for liver allocation to the recipient transplant center as its key change from the previous local-regional-national system. The changes to the LT allocation policy are intended to respond to the Final Rule that states organs and tissues must be distributed on the basis of objective priority criteria and not on the basis of accidents of geography. Ahmed et al show in their analyses of 22 centers that LT-related costs increased by 10.9% in the 12 months following the allocation policy change.