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How does a cardiologist check your heart?

There are many tests that can be done to check on the health of the heart, some of the most common ones are detailed below in the order they are typically performed:

  • Auscultation: Listening with a stethoscope for abnormal heart sounds known as murmurs.
  • Palpation: Feeling the neck, wrists, and chest to check the pattern and strength of the heartbeat.
  • Checking the legs: Looking for swelling that could be an early sign of heart failure.
  • Electrocardiogram (ECG): Looking at the electrical activity in the heart and any abnormalities in how that electricity flows.
  • Blood tests: Checking for any abnormal proteins in the blood that are signs of heart damage or heart failure.
  • X-Ray: Looking for any signs that the heart is increasing in size, another sign of heart failure.
  • Ultrasound: Looking at the motion of the heart, an excellent test for heart failure and diseases that affect the heart valves.
  • Stress tests: Stressing the heart to look for signs that the arteries that feed the heart are blocked. An excellent test for chest pain.
  • Catheterization: Threading a wire through the blood vessels of the arm to the heart and injecting dye that allows the blood vessels to show up on X-ray. This allows the cardiologist to both detect and treat any blockages.

* Savings estimate based on a study of more than 1 billion claims comparing self-pay (or cash pay) prices of a frequency-weighted market basket of procedures to insurer-negotiated rates for the same. Claims were collected between July 2017 and July 2019. R.Lawrence Van Horn, Arthur Laffer, Robert L.Metcalf. 2019. The Transformative Potential for Price Transparency in Healthcare: Benefits for Consumers and Providers. Health Management Policy and Innovation, Volume 4, Issue 3.

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