Tampa General Hospital’s Lung Transplant Program offers a complete, interdisciplinary approach to health care for adults seeking a lung transplant. Our transplant team includes physicians, surgeons, financial counselors, social workers, and program coordinators who are dedicated to guiding all of our transplant patients and their families through each stage of the lung transplant process.
Tampa General recommends that patients be referred to our lung transplant program in the early stages of their disease. Our lung transplant program will evaluate the patient and determine whether they can be added to the transplant waiting list or whether they need to continue to be monitored. The referral process must be initiated by a primary care physician or pulmonologist. He or she will need to send us reports from the last six to 12 months, including your medical history and physical, progress notes, results from labs, chest CT scans and X-ray reports, pulmonary function tests, and demographics with insurance information. Along with these items, the physician’s office should send us a completed lung transplant referral form.
If you’re in stable condition, you will have an initial visit at the Tampa General Hospital Cardiac & Lung Transplant Clinic, where our team will determine if you are a qualified candidate for a lung transplant for your condition. Upon receiving your referral, we will:
- Coordinate communication among you, your physician, the lung transplant health care team, and other hospital departments.
- Help you secure insurance coverage for your treatment by having our financial counselors work with your insurance company.
- Set a date for an initial visit after the transplant coordinator and transplant pulmonologist review your records.
- Send you a useful information packet containing a map and directions to our facility, as well as a medical history survey, a transplant candidate registration request form, a consent form, a pamphlet with general patient information, and information about local hotels offering discounts to our patients.
- Work with you and your physician to discuss possible dates for inpatient or outpatient evaluation, depending on your degree of illness.
If you have questions about becoming a patient in our lung transplant program, please contact Tampa General Hospital toll free at 1-800-505-7769 (press 3 for the lung transplant program and ask for the referral coordinator), or call the coordinator directly at (813) 844-4088.