cardiac catherization cost

[josephl]

Do any of you folks know how much is a charge for cardiac catherization and how much would a physician make for each of this procedure.

Thank you for your response

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[southerndoc]

I think a basic cath is around $3,000. Angioplasty and stenting can push this over $10,000.

I have no idea how much an interventionalist makes off each procedure, but their salary ranges from $450,000 to upwards of one million. A well known interventionalist near my hometown makes 1.5 mil per year according to a physician friend of mine that knows this guy very well. The interventionalist works his butt off though.

 

[mcwmark]

I know that they often *bill* about $25,000 for a cardiac cath with angioplasty and stent placement, expecting to get about 50-70% of that amount. The fee for the cardiologist, from what I've heard, is about $500-1000 for the procedure.

I was shocked to hear that they bill nearly $5000 just for the stent itself, a little wire coil...

 

[ApacheIndian]

Originally posted by Geek Medic
A well known interventionalist near my hometown makes 1.5 mil per year

Wow. I had no idea that interventional cards made so much. Is this the norm? What's an interventionalist's average income? just curious...

 

[southerndoc]

Originally posted by Dr. Cuts
Wow. I had no idea that interventional cards made so much. Is this the norm? What's an interventionalist's average income? just curious...

Most of the ads I've seen attempting to recruit interventionalists guarantee incomes of $350,000+ the first 2 or 3 years of practice.

 

[josephl]

So how much would a cardiologist be making if an interventionlist is around $350K. Is it less/more. By how much.

 

[kenfused]

Probably ALOT less. Figure if you are not doing 3-5 caths/wk you're losing out on alot of $. Depends on where you live, but maybe half as much or so...

 

[dr.evil]

my babysitter had a heart cath and chewed me out for the bill which was $8,000 without physician fees figured in. This was just a straight forward angio for visualization of the vessels. Unbelievable.

Just an aside: Our hospital charges $4500 just to step into our O.R.'s, plus $1000 for pre-op, $1900 for recovery, $3000 in supplies of various sorts. So, $10,000 before you can enter the O.R.

 

[ljube_02]

Hey can interventional radiologists do these procedures as well? And if they work with the cardiologists in the same group, do they split who gets the patients?

 

[southerndoc]

Originally posted by ljube_02
Hey can interventional radiologists do these procedures as well? And if they work with the cardiologists in the same group, do they split who gets the patients?

I may be completely off here, but it's my understanding that interventional radiologists may do diagnostic studies (e.g., arteriograms, cardiac catheterization, etc.), but they may not do interventional techniques such as stent placement. That's how it operates at a hospital that I'm familiar with, and that's what I was told when my mom had a carotid arteriogram done. (Thank God he couldn't do a stent then!)

Maybe it's just institutional dependent, but from what I've seen over my years, it seems like interventional radiologists can do diagnostic interventions only and not therapeutic interventions.

 

[droliver]

I've never heard of an interventional radiologist doing coronary angiography (with or without angioplasty or stenting). They do not get trained as such in the nuaces of cardiac procedures, although I don't know how much of a leap it is to extrapolate their peripheral vascular experience to coronaries. I imagine that it would be a credentialing nightmare nonwithstanding the fact that radiologists are usually not the first people to see these patients and would have diffuculty in getting their hands on them.

 

[womansurg]

For a few brief but memorable encounters our interventional cardiologists were placing peripheral vascular stents - iliac, femoral, subclavian...(huh?)

The patients would present later with occlusions, pseudoaneurisms, limb threat and such, and the vascular surgeons would be furious about having to go in and try to fix it afterward. A near-death bleeding complication from an iliac artery rupture was the crowning event which ended their experimentation.