Comprehensive guide to booking an appointment with a Heart Doctor
When you’re looking to book an appointment with a heart doctor, you want the best level of service possible. At The Harley Street Heart and Vascular Centre, our expert heart doctors have the experience and knowledge needed in ensuring your care is of the highest standard available. Why choose the best? Well, there are few things more important than your own heart. With that said, you’ll want to review a number of different options before finally choosing a heart doctor that you are sure will take care of you.
Today we’ll be putting together a comprehensive guide to booking an appointment with a heart doctor so that you can live your life healthy and to the fullest.
What to know before booking an appointment with the heart doctor
The health of your heart is one of, if not the most important aspects of your overall health. The problems that heart conditions produce can range from debilitating to lethal. We can often completely forget about our heart health, given that it is an organ that ticks along on its own without any conscious input needed from us. But everything we do affects our heart - what we eat, how we move, the way we breathe, and if we aren’t conscious of its state of health, it can be neglected and defective.
Some common heart problems are as follows:
Coronary heart disease is incredibly common, occurring when the heart’s blood vessels become narrowed or blocked and fail to supply blood to your heart, resulting in heart attacks or angina.
Heart attacks are commonly known, with someone having a heart attack every 40 seconds in the USA alone.
Unstable angina, which is less well known, happens when the blood supply to your heart becomes restricted and can last up to 10 minutes, but should be taken incredibly seriously.
Arrhythmia is when the electrical signals within the heart are interrupted or disturbed, causing the heart to beat too quickly or too slowly. Or just in an irregular way. This can cause a stroke or other more serious heart problems.
Valve disease is where strain is put on the valve muscles leading to symptoms like breathing problems, swollen ankles, fatigue and chest pain.
If you cannot see and feel your heart, how do you know if these problems exist? This is the issue - many heart problems creep up on us without us knowing about it. Symptoms can be mild and dismissed, or might not occur until the disease is at a more advanced stage. As a rule of thumb, never ignore a symptom even if you think it is nothing. What do you look for?
Common symptoms of heart problems could be:
- Chest pain
- Breathlessness
- Palpitations – feeling of fast or irregular heart beats
- Dizziness or syncope (blackouts)
- Swelling in the body
- Tightness in the chest
- Heaviness in the chest
- Left arm pain
- Changes in skin colour
- Fatigue and sleep changes
If you’re experiencing any of the above, you will want to visit a heart doctor as soon as possible.
The heart doctor at The Harley Streets is incredibly well qualified in assessing and understanding the needs of each individual patient. So when it comes to being able to trust your heart doctor, you’ll know you’re in good hands.
What Happens At The Clinic?
To begin the process, give us a call and book an appointment. Appointments are available on an emergency basis if needed. Your heart doctor will see you at The Harley Street Heart and Vascular Centre and discuss the issues you’ve been facing and the symptoms that have occurred. At this stage, the heart doctor will have a good understanding of your problems and after a few tests, they should be able to give you an initial diagnosis. Whilst this part of the process is typically the most scary and puts a great many people off starting in the first place, there’s no need to worry. Our highly trained heart doctor works with a great level of empathy and care for his patients, ensuring that you’ll be put at ease and your health will be considered first and foremost. Remember to equip yourself in advance with as much medical history and information as you can find about your health, to hand to your heart doctor or their admin staff at the clinic. Please read our guide to preparing for your cardiology appointment here.
If your heart doctor feels it’s appropriate at this stage, he/she may schedule you in for some initial treatment or more in-depth testing. Depending on your situation, your heart doctor will act accordingly to provide you with the best care possible.
At your initial visit, it’s typically a good idea to keep a note of your symptoms, problems, existing conditions and more to be able to be fully transparent with your heart doctor. After all, the more they know the better suited they are to support you and withholding or forgetting information could lead to an incorrect diagnosis or unsuitable treatment. Also, ask as many questions as you need and don’t be shy to ask for further clarification if you do not understand something.
How much does it cost to choose the best heart doctor in Singapore?
As we mentioned earlier, you want the best care for your body available to you. However as with anything in life, this may come at a greater cost than other alternatives. But, as we’re sure you’ll agree, there’s very little more important than the health of your heart. So you’re going to want the best.
The cost for your heart treatment will ultimately come down to the severity of your problems, how much treatment is required and a number of other variables that we can’t know until you’ve spoken to your heart doctor.
As an idea of what the costs could be, a consultation with a cardiologist could range from $180 to $300, with the higher end typically offering a more personal, private and detailed service. These costs are representative of the time taken to understand your health, your body and your lifestyle. All of which are contributing factors to any possible heart problems you may be experiencing.
Tests will produce further costs, with an ECG costing around $60 to $80, and an echocardiogram costing you $450 to $600. To produce a further example, someone in need of a coronary angioplasty (a procedure which is designed to open blockages in your heart vessels) will pay around $6,700 to $12,200 in cardiology fees.
The Bottom Line
We know that despite the importance of your heart health, costs are still a major concern so our goal is to be as transparent as possible with you about the costs and the process. The most important thing however is that you begin your treatment with a consultation as soon as possible. The longer you delay, the more risk you run of developing more serious heart problems and in the end, could be jeopardizing your own life.
Contact us
To book an appointment with our heart doctor, you can begin the process by clicking here. If we consider the appointment to be an emergency, we will aim to fit you in on the day you contact us. So please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you are concerned about heart problems.
