About CCP
Cardiology Consultants of Philadelphia, P.C.
CCP is a medical professional organization committed to the healing mission of Medicine. CCP specializes in providing comprehensive cardiology care. All patients are treated with full effort and resource utilization as indicated by their condition. All activities of CCP support the healing mission of offering health services to our patients and is based on our core values.
CCP is affiliated with The Cardiovascular Institute of Philadelphia, an independent community resource dedicated to advancing the science and practice of cardiovascular medicine. CCP has a state of the art outpatient cardiac care center, The Cardiac Care Center, a high-quality, physician-owned, freestanding catheterization facility located at Hahnemann University Hospital on the 2nd floor of the Bobst Building at 230 North Broad Street in Philadelphia (the corner of Broad & Vine Streets).
CCP News
Upcoming Health Care Legislation
A look at the burgeoning health care crisis (audio) Costly Medicare Changes
By this time tomorrow, some 2,400 Americans will be dead from cardiovascular disease, which takes more lives each year than cancer, accidents and diabetes combined.
By this time next year, though, rates of cardiovascular deaths may well have increased significantly if proposed Medicare regulations are implemented.
America's cardiologists are now waging a two-front war to save our patients' lives. The first is against heart disease, a battle we increasingly are winning. Advancements in cardiology during the past 10 years have reduced heart-related deaths and the severity of heart-related illness by 27 percent. That's important because the urgent need for this lifesaving specialty will increase 60 percent in the next 15 years as baby boomers advance in age and because the current shortage of cardiologists is expected to worsen over that time.
The second front in this life-and-death campaign is our fight to ensure that Medicare and Congress put patients first, ahead of well-intentioned but ultimately harmful changes that would reduce access to the best care possible.
There are three keys to successfully treating a patient with heart disease: speed, access to the latest technology and access to specialized expertise. Unfortunately, certain changes now under consideration would cause lengthy delays in diagnosis and treatment, limit patient access to technology and, by forcing some physicians to curtail services, severely limit access to care.
For example, Medicare officials and some reformers have focused on the ownership and use of important diagnostic equipment in a misguided attempt to generate cost reductions.
Their answer to controlling spending is to limit or eliminate a physician's ability to use in-office imaging equipment or reduce reimbursement to the point that it's simply not feasible for physician offices to use critically important diagnostic tools.
Patients would be forced to travel elsewhere for imaging services, hitting thousands of rural patients hardest. It would increase both beneficiaries' out-of-pocket costs and Medicare's costs overall, since it is more expensive to provide imaging services in a hospital setting. And it would place yet another person between the patient and the physician who knows the patient best.
Having the diagnostic tools in a physician's office saves precious time and helps ensure an accurate diagnosis and a better outcome for the patient. Today's advanced imaging equipment is as fundamental as our stethoscope in diagnosing and treating cardiac disease.
To win the fight against cardiac disease, patients need access to the right cardiac care with the right tools at the right time.
We support strong credentialing and accreditation programs to make certain that diagnostic equipment is used properly and cost effectively. We support the use of criteria to help physicians determine which test is appropriate based on a patient's symptoms and medical history. We support disclosure of physician ownership in hospitals to promote transparency.
When it comes to health care reform, cardiologists have only one condition: Any changes must put the patient first. Unfortunately, the changes that would affect cardiology in proposed Medicare regulations put saving money ahead of saving lives. And that's something millions of Americans who suffer from cardiovascular disease can live without. More Info CCP Wins the 2008 Nicholas E. Davies Ambulatory Care Award of Excellence
Cardiology Consultants of Philadelphia (CCP) is pleased to announce that they have won a 2008 Davies Ambulatory Care Award for their success in integrating the use of EHR throughout their practice. The purpose of this award is to recognize independent ambulatory practices that have succeessfully implementated electronic health records (EHR) in their practice and specialty settings and shared their approaches and lessons learned more broadly. The Davies Award Program was originally created by CPRI-HOST in honor of Dr. Nicholas Davies, an Atlanta-based physician who was committed to improving patient care through better health information management. He was a member of the Institute of Medicine’s patient record study committee. In April, 1991, he was tragically killed in a plane crash with Senator John G. Tower (Rep.) of Texas. His ideals live on through the Davies Recognition Program now managed by HIMSS. The Davies Award Program has three tracts: Organizational, Ambulatory Care and Public Health, which together have acknowledged more than 40 hospitals, private practices and public health efforts for their exemplary EHR implementations through the Davies Award More Info
Health Headlines
Comparison of Bleeding Complications With Omega-3 Fatty
Acids + Aspirin + Clopidogrel—Versus—Aspirin + Clopidogrel
in Patients With Cardiovascular Disease An Article by CCP's own Dean G. Karalis, MD in the American Journal of Cardiology, 10/15/2009 Intensive Lowering of Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Levels for Primary Prevention of Coronary Artery Disease
An Article by CCP's own Dean G. Karalis, MD in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings April 2009 Selective Use Of Early Revascularization Can Benefit Elderly Patients
The elderly represent a growing proportion of patients presenting with acute myocardial infarction (MI) complicated by cardiogenic shock (CS). CS occurs when the heart fails to supply enough blood to the organs of the body... Selective Use Of Early Revascularization Can Benefit Elderly Patients
The elderly represent a growing proportion of patients presenting with acute myocardial infarction (MI) complicated by cardiogenic shock (CS). CS occurs when the heart fails to supply enough blood to the organs of the body... Does Gene Show Link Between Migraine And Stroke Or Heart Attacks?
New research looks at whether a gene variant may affect the link between migraine and stroke or heart attacks. The study is published in the February 17, 2009, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology... More Health Headlines
