Tampa General Hospital’s Heart Transplant Center offers adults a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach to transplant care. The first step in becoming a heart transplant patient at Tampa General is to obtain a referral to our program from your cardiologist. The referral should include a completed cardiothoracic referral form as well as up-to-date information from the past six to 12 months, such as:
- Your patient history and physical exam results
- Lab results
- Procedure reports
- Progress notes
- Demographics with insurance information
Once we receive your referral, and if your condition is stable, our heart transplant program coordinator will begin facilitating communication between you, your physician, and our transplant team, and schedule you for an initial consultation. At this first meeting, our transplant team will determine if you are a candidate for transplant surgery. If you are, our financial counselor will coordinate with you and your insurance company to secure authorization for your subsequent evaluation and treatment.
You will also receive a new patient information packet to make your first visit to our transplant center easier for you and your family. This useful packet includes:
- A pamphlet of general information
- A medical history survey
- A transplant candidate registration request form
- A consent form
- A map and directions to TGH
- A list of hotels offering discounts to our patients
Contact Tampa General Hospital for more information by calling 1-800-505-7769 (press 1 for the heart transplant program and ask for the referral coordinator), or by calling the coordinator directly at (813) 844-4088.
As transplants and LVADs (left ventricular assist devices) have become more successful as standard therapies for treatment of heart failure, appropriately timing transplant referrals has become increasingly complicated. Nationally, approximately 12.3 percent of patients on the waiting list for a heart transplant die each year due to lack of donor availability. We recommend that patients be referred in the early stages of their disease. Our heart transplant program will evaluate patients and determine whether they can be added to the transplant waiting list or whether they need to continue to be monitored.