Second Opinions for Pediatric Heart Care

Reviewer note: example page for UWCR-16607. Details at the bottom.

If your child has been diagnosed with a heart condition or you're facing a treatment decision, a second opinion from a specialist at the UCSF Pediatric Heart Center can offer valuable information, explain your options and give you confidence in what happens next.

There are two ways to seek a second opinion in pediatric cardiology at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals:

• Request a second opinion from our heart team. Call us or use our online tool to schedule a callback from a patient navigator. The intake conversations are free of charge. If you end up seeing a UCSF provider, that gets billed to your insurance like a standard specialist visit. Learn more >
• Get a written opinion from our heart team for a flat fee. You can submit your medical records and receive a written second opinion from a UCSF pediatric heart expert for $900. This may be a helpful option if your insurance wouldn't cover a visit with a UCSF specialist. Learn more >

What to have ready

You do not need any of this to get in touch. Having it on hand helps the navigator get your child's case to the right specialist faster.

• Your child's heart diagnosis, if they have one
• The name and phone number of the cardiologist or pediatrician caring for your child now
• Recent test results, such as an echocardiogram, cardiac MRI, CT scan or cardiac catheterization report
• The questions you most want answered
• Your insurance information

Second opinions for medical professionals

If you are a physician seeking a second opinion from a UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals heart specialist, please visit our Request a Consultation page.

If this is an emergency

If your child may be having a medical emergency, call your local emergency service number (911 in the United States) or go to the nearest emergency room.

Why families come to the UCSF Pediatric Heart Center

The UCSF Pediatric Heart Center cares for children of all ages, from newborns to teens, across the full range of cardiac conditions, including the most serious and complex. U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks the program among the nation's best for pediatric cardiology and heart surgery, and best in Northern California. It is the only center in the Western U.S. using 3D printing to plan complex cardiac procedures.

Learn more about the UCSF Pediatric Heart Center, including our services, special programs and outcomes.

About this page

Example page for UWCR-16607, not a live one. An LLM drafted the copy. No writer and no clinician has reviewed it. Revised 21 September 2026 to Jenny's notes on the ticket.

Kelly's ticket supplied the patient routes and the referrer route. The Summus facts, the $900 fee, the seven to 10 day turnaround and the emergency note come from the live Second Opinion page. Jenny rewrote the introduction, both second opinion blurbs and the emergency note.

These lines have no UCSF source. The LLM wrote them.

• "U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks the program among the nation's best for pediatric cardiology and heart surgery, and best in Northern California." The live Pediatric Heart Center page does not say this.
• "It is the only center in the Western U.S. using 3D printing to plan complex cardiac procedures." The Pediatric Heart Center page does not say this either.
• "The navigator learns about your child's condition, helps gather the records our specialists need and connects your family with the right UCSF pediatric heart expert."
• The five items under "What to have ready." The list follows what Boston Children's, CHOP and Children's Colorado ask families to gather, not a UCSF process document.
• "If your child is currently receiving care in a hospital, call 877-822-4453 and let us know so our team can reach a UCSF heart specialist for you sooner."

Each one needs a source or needs to come out.

What changed in this revision:

• Sections reordered to Jenny's sequence: introduction, talk with our heart team, what to have ready, written second opinion, medical professionals, emergency, why families come to the Pediatric Heart Center.
• The comparison chart and the "Still deciding?" blurb are gone. The chart was the only thing that distinguished this build from the cards build, which still carries the original draft in full.
• The hero's navigator button now reads "Schedule a call with our heart team," and the phone number takes secondary button styling.
• The two "Learn more" links in the introduction jump to the matching blurb further down the page.
• The page now says when the main line is answered: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific time, Monday to Friday. It no longer tells families not to use the second opinion service in an emergency, which the live Second Opinion page still does.
• Jenny's replacement copy dropped the live page's caveat that written second opinions are not offered in every specialty and subspecialty area, and added that they cannot be provided for patients who are currently hospitalized.

Still open, for Kelly and the service line:

• Is the patient navigator scheduler the right destination? The ticket left a question mark after it.
• Is it right that intake conversations are free of charge, but seeing a UCSF provider afterwards is billed to insurance like a standard specialist visit? The page now says so in two places.
• For the Summus written second opinion, is the $900 paid up front before any intake, and refunded if they cannot help? Or is the intake free and the fee charged to proceed?
• Where do the phone hours and the restriction on hospitalized patients come from? Neither appears on the live Second Opinion page.
• Does the team want to promise a response time, or is sending families to the scheduler and stating the phone hours enough? Boston Children's promises 48 business hours.
• Two questions every competitor answers and this page still does not: does asking for a second opinion delay my child's treatment, and do I have to tell my current cardiologist?