The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is moving to “decertify” the Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency, a division at UM’s Miller School of Medicine, as of Thursday, Sept. 18.
This move comes after an HHS investigation revealed “years of poor training, chronic underperformance, understaffing and paperwork errors.” The HHS cited a 2024 case of a surgeon mistakenly declining a donated heart for a transplant patient.
LAORA, a division of the Daughtry Family Department of Surgery at Miller, is one of the U.S.’s 55 organ procurement organizations. These organizations are regulated by HHS through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s initiative to reform the organ transplant system was launched in July and prompted the current investigation. His initiative came after the Health Resources and Services Administration “revealed disturbing practices” by an unidentified large organ procurement organization.
“Our findings show that hospitals allowed the organ procurement process to begin when patients showed signs of life, and this is horrifying,” said Kennedy. “The entire system must be fixed to ensure that every potential donor’s life is treated with the sanctity it deserves.”
The HHS investigation found that at least 28 patients nationally may not have been deceased when organ procurement was initiated.
UM medical and transplant efforts have faced other investigations in the past.
The Miami Transplant Institute, which is a collaboration between UHealth and the Jackson Health System, was suspended from performing adult heart transplants in 2023. The institute voluntarily agreed to suspend the program while anonymous complaints were investigated.
In a separate case largely related to the Miami Transplant Institute, a press release on the DOJ website says that UM agreed to pay $22 million in 2021 to “resolve allegations” that it violated the False Claims Act. The press release says UM ordered “medically unnecessary” laboratory tests for patients who received kidney transplants and submitted “inflated claims for reimbursement” for pre-transplant testing.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, highlighted that addressing the current state of the system will improve patient outcomes.
“For too long, patients and families have suffered from systemic failures,” Oz said. “We are enforcing rigorous standards and modernizing the system with better data, stronger oversight and innovative tools to make organ procurement safer, fairer and more effective for every American awaiting a transplant.”
The Miami Hurricane reached out to the University of Miami, the UM Miller and UHealth media relations team and LAORA for a comment. The Hurricane has not yet received a response.