Medical University of South Carolina is taking steps to resume performing heart transplants for people who rely on Medicare, Post and Courier reporter Mary Katherine Wildeman wrote in a recent article.
In her Aug. 10 article on the newspaper's website, Wildeman wrote that Medical University of South Carolina CEO Pat Cawley told the university's board that the school could be reinstated in the federal program to get the monetary support because it had done 10 heart transplants in the year.
Medical University Hospital recently applied for the monetary support in an application that came six months after Medicare discontinued supporting the school's heart transplants because it had not done enough transplants at that point in the year, the article said.
The federal program's decision to cease funding was part of an effort to not fund "low volume" centers, the article said.
Cawley told Wildeman that Medical University of South Carolina fought Medicare's call on stopping the monetary support and explained to her that such an appeal could last nearly a year and a half, the article said.
Wildeman wrote that Medical University Hospital has done six heart transplants from the middle of April to Aug. 10. Wildeman wrote that patients who had transplants performed in that time period used their own money or used their private insurance.
