Some patients come to us for prevention of heart disease, some for diagnosis of cardiac symptoms and some for treatment of established heart disease.

For patients who come for prevention, we identify all cardiac risk factors and diagnose if subclinical heart disease is likely to be present. A comprehensive treatment plan is developed to significantly reduce the risk of cardiovascular events. The slide on the right compares our published performance data (NJPCCC) to four others. At 85% LDL-cholesterol treatment success rate, it is the best published performance data by a wide margin. We are able to achieve is a large reduction in the rate of heart attack, stroke, sudden cardiac death, future need for heart bypass surgery, angioplasty and stent. From the time our aggressive prevention program started in 2001 to the present, our event rate and hospitalization rate had taken a marked and progressive decline. This treatment approach benefits our patients with much better clinical outcomes and lower healthcare cost.

For patients who come for diagnosis, we determine if heart disease is present or not. If it is present, we provide not only treatment, but at the same time, implement preventive therapy to halt or slow down disease progression. Even reverse heart disease in some cases.

For patients with established heart disease, we assess the severity of disease and treat to relieve symptoms while at the same time, institute aggressive therapy to prevent further disease progression.

Most heart attack and stroke are now considered largely preventable. Even in those cases where complete prevention is not possible, optimal treatment can delay them for 10 to 20 years. Our treatment is safe, highly effective, evidence-based and covered by insurance. Take the first step to prevention - find out if you are at risk. Click here and take the heart risk test.

Why more aggressive prevention? Why not just diagnose and treat heart disease as we do now?

Cardiovascular disease remains the number 1 public health problem in the US. Last week, the Texas Heart Attack Prevention Bill was passed, marking a milestone in the prevention of CHD in the US. This week, the American Journal of Cardiology published a study called “Potential Reductions in United States Coronary Heart Disease Mortality by Treating More Patients” by Capewell et al.

It concluded that in 2000, the treatment levels in the US were generally poor and that if 60% of eligible patients received appropriate therapies, there would have been 297,470 fewer deaths in the US. Secondary prevention would have resulted in 30% fewer deaths, primary prevention for 15% and stents/heart bypass for 1%. The study did not calculate the healthcare cost and the total number of deaths that could have been prevented from 2000 to 2008. We have lost many Americans needlessly from failure to treat what is now considered largely preventable. This is much more than all the Americans that were killed in recent conflicts. Unlike the war against terrorism, this one was already won – effective treatment was widely available and these Americans were eligible for treatment, most even had insurance, but just did not receive it.

For most Americans, being healthy, staying healthy and keeping their health insurance have become an even greater concern as they try to pull themselves up from consequences of the economic meltdown they suffered for many years to come. The consequences of suffering a heart attack are life-changing and often devastating, if not fatal. This is the worse time for many hardworking middle-class Americans to get sick or get disabled.

Optimal cholesterol treatment of patients at high risk for heart attack and stroke is already covered by insurance. But a wide treatment gap exists - many patients who are at risk and will benefit from aggressive lipid therapy are either not being treated adequately or not receiving any treatment at all. Physicians need to perform a formal cardiovascular risk assessment, document it on the chart and provide the treatment recommended by NCEP ATP III guidelines. The risk assessment web tool provided at www.HeartRiskTest.net can make this task less cumbersome.