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Referring a Patient for Heart Transplant
at University of Minnesota Medical Center
We take pride at the Transplant Center in our ability to evaluate patients for consideration of our heart failure and heart transplant program as quickly as the referring physician deems appropriate. For urgent situations, patients may be scheduled for an inpatient evaluation same day or in clinic within one week. For non-urgent referrals , we strive to schedule patients according to their availability and as clinically indicated.
A referral may be initiated as simply as having your office staff call 612-625-9922 or 800-478-5864 with pertinent demographic, diagnosis, and insurance information. The referring physician is always welcome to telephone the same number to request consultation information, or more urgently, to page the heart transplant attending physician on-call 24 hours a day via the operator at 612-273-3000.
The appropriate timing of referral for transplantation has become increasingly complicated as transplantation and LVADs have become more successful and standard therapies for treatment of heart failure.
Nationally, approximately 15 percent of patients on the waiting list for transplant die each year due to lack of donor availability. Most of the patients who die are originally listed when their disease is relatively well compensated.
As the time between listing and transplantation continues to increase, we recommend that patients be listed early in their disease process. The transplant center is willing to accept the responsibility of determining whether the patient requires listing for transplantation or close monitoring to list at a more appropriate time based on the current transplant climate and United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) requirements.
