Join the fight for continued access to non-invasive testing!

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What is going on?

Medicare coverage for post-transplant tests, such as CareDx’s AlloMap and AlloSure, is being reviewed. The transplant community now has the opportunity to share comments and letters on the importance of these tests and how restricting access to these tests could negatively impact patients and their post-transplant health.

Why does this matter to you?

AlloMap and AlloSure help detect issues, such as rejection, with transplants earlier than traditional testing, while also helping patients avoid invasive procedures like biopsies. These tests have been trusted by the transplant community for over 15 years for heart transplant recipients, over 5 years in kidney transplant recipients, and over 2 years in lung transplant recipients.

New proposed coverage for these tests is more restrictive. If these new restrictions are put in place, it could limit access to these important tests. This could prevent your care team from being able to order these blood tests to check on how your transplant is doing when they think it is needed.

How can you help?

The patient voice is powerful and deserves to be heard on this important issue! From now until September 23, 2023, you can send a comment or letter to the groups making these decisions, voicing your perspective on the importance of these tests and need for continued access. 

While doing so in your own words is best, we have created the below prompts to help. To start your letter, select at least one of the prompts below that feels best for you and answer it in your own words. Be sure to include what kind of transplant you have had, a little bit about your own transplant story, and how non-invasive tests like AlloSure or AlloMap have impacted your post-transplant care.

Click here to learn more and start your letter!

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Catheter ablation safe, effective for AF in patients awaiting heart transplant

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By Scott Buzby

In patients with end-stage HF awaiting transplant, catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation was safe and effective and was associated with improvements in left ventricular ejection fraction and AF burden, a speaker reported.

The duration of follow-up was intended to be 3 years, but due to the number of clinical events, the trial data safety monitoring board recommended to stop the study prematurely at 1.5 years. Read the full story in Healio.

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Carpal tunnel syndrome may be early predictor of heart failure risk

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By Regina Shaffer

Adults with a diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome are 39% more likely to develop HF during 10 years of follow-up, especially amyloidosis, compared with those without a carpal tunnel syndrome diagnosis, researchers reported.

“The increased rate of HF among patients with carpal tunnel syndrome requires attention because HF is a common disease associated with high mortality,” Mark Luedde, MD, from Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel and Cardiology Joint Practice in Bremerhaven, Germany, and colleagues wrote in JAMA Network Open. Read the full story in Healio.

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Heart, other organs show mitochondrial damage after COVID-19 despite recovery of lungs

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By Scott Buzby

Following SARS-CoV-2 infection, mitochondrial function remained impaired in the heart, liver and kidneys, despite observed recovery in the lungs, according to a human autopsy and animal tissue study.

Upon SARS-CoV-2 infection of host cells, the viral copy number increases unchecked until the innate immune system is engaged, after which the viral copies progressively decline until the virus is eliminated,” Joseph Guarnieri, PhD, postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Mitochondrial and Epigenomic Medicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and colleagues wrote. Read the full article in Healio.

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1st ‘domino’ transplant performed in babies saves 2 girls born with heart defects

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When the Skaats family learned baby Mia needed a new heart they felt devastated. But Mia helped another family in domino heart transplant, a first in babies.

By Meghan Holohan

When Mia Skaats was only 10 days old, she began breathing rapidly, and her mom, Nicole Skaats, immediately knew something was wrong. Doctors eventually determined the newborn had cardiomyopathy, a condition where the heart struggles to bump blood to the rest of the body, and she was in heart failure.

Mia needed a heart transplant, so when one became available, the Skaats family felt overjoyed their daughter, born in September 2022, would have a new chance at life. Check out the full story from NBC’s Today.

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Medical Mystery: A Healthy Hiker Couldn’t Catch Her Breath

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It wasn’t a heart attack. So why was the active 59-year-old’s heart suddenly failing?

By Rachel Nania, AARP

About a month before Beth Ramsey started feeling crummy, she was hiking a glacier in Iceland. So, when she began having shortness of breath a few weeks after her 2022 trip, the then-59-year-old elementary school principal assumed it was bronchitis or another common illness. Read the full article from AARP.

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CareDx’s HeartCare Multimodality Service Receives Medicare Coverage for Heart Transplant Surveillance

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AUGUST, 02, 2023

HeartCare Combines Testing Using Both AlloMap Gene Expression Profiling and AlloSure Donor-Derived Cell-Free DNA

BRISBANE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– CareDx, Inc. (Nasdaq: CDNA), a leading precision medicine company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of clinically differentiated, high-value healthcare solutions for transplant patients and caregivers – today announced Medicare coverage for HeartCare, a multimodality testing service that includes both AlloMap® Heart and AlloSure® Heart, in a given patient encounter, for heart transplant surveillance. Coverage is effective April 1, 2023. AlloMap Heart and AlloSure Heart are also covered by Medicare individually. Read the complete press release on CareDx.com.

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How a heart transplant brought 2 moms together — and led them to ‘America’s Got Talent’

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By Lottie Elizabeth Johnson

Most contestants who go on “America’s Got Talent” have the same aspiration: They want to achieve stardom.

For many of the acts on the competition show — whether it’s singing or dancing or ventriloquism or magic — the “AGT” audition is a major stepping stone on the path to success and fame. Read the full story in Yahoo Entertainment.

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