Audience

  • Primary Data Coordinators, Physicians, Program Administrators and Surgeons at heart and lung programs
  • Transplant Program’s Clinical Coordinators, Administrators/Managers, Program Directors, Medical Directors and Surgical Directors at heart and lung programs
  • Please share this notice with anyone in your organization who would benefit from this information

Implementation date
Oct. 28, 2020

At-a-glance statement

The following changes to the diagnosis code drop down list in WaitlistSM and the Primary Diagnosis drop down list on TCR and TRR forms in TIEDI® are now available:

  • Lung candidates
    • COVID-19: ARDS
    • COVID-19: PULMONARY FIBROSIS
  • Heart candidates
    • COVID-19: DILATED MYOPATHY: ACTIVE MYOCARDITIS
    • COVID-19: DILATED MYOPATHY: HISTORY OF MYOCARDITIS
    • DILATED MYOPATHY: VIRAL changed to DILATED MYOPATHY: VIRAL (NOT COVID-19)
  • Conversion of of all actively listed Waitlist candidates with the inactive diagnosis to the new one. Removed candidates are not impacted.
  • For patients with the inactivated diagnosis on TIEDI forms, their Primary Diagnosis field are blank. Members entering forms in TIEDI need to select an appropriate code for their patients with viral Dilated Myopathy from one of the three new available codes.

What you need to do

  • Transplant hospitals should use the COVID-19 diagnosis codes as appropriate when listing lung and heart candidates or entering information on TCR and TRR TIEDI forms.
  • Transplant hospitals should also modify the diagnosis for any patient converted to the new Dilated Myopathy: Viral (Not COVID-19) code in Waitlist who should more accurately be assigned one of the COVID-19 heart diagnosis codes.

Additional details

The purpose of adding these options is to specify when COVID-19 related organ failure is the cause for lung and heart candidate listings.

The initial proposed action, addressing lung candidate diagnoses, was published for special public comment from Aug. 31 through Oct 1. During public comment, the OPTN Heart Transplantation Committee recommended that heart candidate diagnoses be added to those originally proposed for lung candidates. The OPTN Board of Directors approved the proposal during an Oct. 8 conference call.

Having these options available helps to identify trends in these patient populations that could inform future policy changes.  This is not expected to have any impact to the lung allocation score calculated for these lung candidates.

Education and resources

Read the policy notice on OPTN

Questions?

If you have questions relating to implementation, contact UNOS Customer Service at unethelpdesk@unos.org, or call 800-978-4334 from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. EDT.

For policy-related questions, contact member.questions@unos.org. 

The UNOS COVID-19 resources page is refreshed regularly with the most current updates and resources. Please check back frequently for updates.

The post appeared first on UNOS.