PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Cardiovasc. Med.
Sec. Heart Failure and Transplantation
When Healthcare Becomes the Barrier to Heart Transplantation and Advanced Therapies
Provisionally accepted
- Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, United States
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Surgical management of advanced heart failure is complex and multi-faceted. It requires a coordinated care team and is accompanied by strict criteria for which patients qualify for either a donor heart for transplantation or a ventricular assist device. For these patients, these interventions offer the potential to extend life by multiple years. However, for patients without appropriate financial coverage, these therapies can become virtually inaccessible. Our perspective piece illustrates a real patient's struggles and highlights their complex barriers to heart transplantation.
Keywords: Heart tranplantation, health insurance, UNOS, Medicare, Medicaid
Received: 21 Aug 2025; Accepted: 20 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gilani, Imielski, Khawaja and Pisani. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Aaron Gilani, agilani@wakehealth.edu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.