Heart Attack Risks

Know Heart Attack Risks – Detect Early

Consult Cardiologist, Dr. Michael J Wong – Call (213) 483-7766

Initial Consultation

At your initial consultation we collect your comprehensive personal medical history including a detailed family history.

Lipid Profiling

We draw your blood in our office and then send it to specialized laboratories for testing. Interpreting the results, we can detect metabolic disorders that can lead to the build up of arterial plaque. Indicators we test for include:

  • Total cholesterol level
  • LDL (“bad”) cholesterol level & the different subclasses*
  • HDL (“good”)cholesterol level & the different subclasses*
  • Tryglycerides level
  • Apolipoprotein B
  • Genetic factors (lipoprotein (a) and apolipoprotein E)
  • Vascular and general inflammatory markers

*This information can direct cardioprotective dietary recommendations and medication.

Treatment

Based upon your lipid profile, heart scan and other diagnostic tests, we develop a customized program of medication, diet, nutrition and exercise with you that can reduce your risk of heart disease by reversing the process of atherosclerosis. We try to minimize the amount of medication required by encouraging you to adopt a healthy lifestyle program. (We have a few patients who cannot or prefer not to take medications and we are still able to achieve progress in reducing cardiovascular risk.) In the rare event that surgery is required; it is usually planned instead of an emergency, greatly improving the chances for the best outcome.

ECP (also known as EECP) is a simple, noninvasive, outpatient treatment for angina. Read more about the ECP bed.

Follow-up Visits

We carefully monitor your compliance to lifestyle recommendations, weight control, and medications against improvements in your blood tests and imaging studies to ensure that progress is being made.

Telephone Consults

Existing patients of HeartCare (for whom we have done a thorough, first-time consultation) sometimes ask why the doctor “can’t just call me and go over my labs?” We do not do telephone consults as a rule, because there are so many advantages to seeing the doctor in person. When you are in the office, we can measure your weight and blood pressure and conduct other follow-up procedures and assessments such as a physical exam with a stethoscope to listen to possible indicators of plaque in the arteries.
In addition, your demeanor and questions enable the doctor to gauge how well you comprehend his advice. You are also encouraged to bring a spouse, caregiver, children, or significant other along with you, so discussions of diet and exercise can be understood and supported by those directly involved. Clearly, a follow-up is most effective in person.
In rare cases, where a patient is well-known to us, that patient has an established compliance record, and it is very difficult for that patient to come in (for example, he or she lives abroad), we will do a telephone consultation. That still requires that we review the chart, including the diagnostic studies and prior records, prepare the lab flow summary, and review his or her medications, as we do when a patient comes to the office.
Since we cannot bill for a telephone consult through insurance, we charge $150 payable in advance by credit card and we set aside ten minutes by telephone. Of course this visit is charted by the physician so progress is monitored.