Honor the Gift

The Challenge

Anyone living with end stage renal disease (ESRD) is eligible for Medicare, regardless of age or disability status. People with this condition must undergo dialysis up to three times a week to fulfill the kidney’s function, but this is only a temporary solution. The best course of treatment for people with ESRD is to eventually undergo a kidney transplant. Medicare covers the cost of a kidney transplant as well as dialysis for the patient’s lifetime. However, it only covered a kidney transplant patient’s immunosuppressive medications—which are essential to maintaining the transplanted kidney—for three years. If a patient could not afford the drugs, a rejection was likely putting them back into costly and burdensome kidney dialysis. Although Medicare’s short-sighted coverage policy had long been recognized as an issue among the kidney community, after nearly two decades of failed attempts to address it with legislation, many viewed the needed policy change as a dead-end issue.

The Solution

9,568 letters to Congress and 8,009 pledges to honor the gift of kidney donation later, we succeeded.

Within three months, we used our Issue Prioritization Rubric to identify our issue and launched Honor the Gift, a national patient-centered campaign created and managed by CURA Strategies and supported by a coalition of kidney and transplant organizations. The goal of the campaign and coalition was to extend Medicare coverage of critical immunosuppressive medications for kidney transplant recipients, which, at the time, ended three years after someone received a transplanted kidney. For nearly two decades, advocates tried and failed to pass legislation that would address this issue.

9,568 letters to Congress and 8,009 pledges to honor the gift of kidney donation later, we succeeded. The Comprehensive Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage for Kidney Transplant Patients Act (Immuno Bill) was signed into law on December 27, 2020 and will go into effect on January 1, 2023.

We leveraged an issue-based campaign to secure passage:

• Uniquely brand the efforts
• Humanize the issue and bring to life the patient perspective through storytelling
• Engage and recruit third parties to validate and support the campaign
• Build and activate a community of advocates
• Serve as the conduit to the community for influencers and media

The Results

Awards

Services