By AP/KWMU
St. Louis, MO – The heart transplant program at Saint Louis University Hospital plans to continue operations but has agreed to withdraw from the Medicare program.
That comes as two other programs, in North Carolina and New York, are having their funding pulled for poor performance. The three medical centers failed to perform at least 12 heart transplants each last year, which is the federal standard for ensuring competency.
SLU performed zero, but a SLU spokeswoman says the lower number of transplants is the result of success in other therapies for heart failure.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sent letters Tuesday notifying heart transplant programs at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina and Montefiore Medical Center in New York that they will lose their funding. SLU Hospital agreed to withdraw from the Medicare program.
The programs have 30 days to challenge the government's action, said Dr. Barry Straube, Medicare's chief medical officer.
Straube said several other programs are under review: "It might be possible that people were not taking this seriously enough and thinking that we would not take this action."
The Los Angeles Times reported in June that a fifth of 236 federally funded heart, liver and lung transplant centers had sub-par patient survival or performed too few operations to ensure competency.
Wake Forest, Montefiore and Saint Louis University all planned to continue their heart transplant programs despite the loss of federal funds.
"We have invested a tremendous amount of resources; we feel it is a viable program," Wake Forest spokesman Mark Wright said.
Montefiore has hired "a great team of true nationally recognized experts" to rebuild its program, spokesman Steven Osborne said.
Saint Louis University also will continue its program, hospital spokeswoman Laura Signaigo said in an e-mail to the Times.