According to a report just this October, ½ of the Americans who went through an artery operation for heart ailment weren’t able to get a recommendation for cardiac tests ahead of time. The tests like angioplasty or stenting may be of help to them beforehand, but there were around 44% of the patients in this study who got the tests. Though doctors are expecting to find around 100% of the patients to be tested for angiogram and stent, they were expecting higher percentage than 44% though according to Dr. Rita Redberg, a professor of medicine at the University of California.

The coronary intervention

Dr. Redberg also happens to be a team member that studied the medical records of around 24,000 people who had elective percutaneous coronary intervention or PCI. Elective means that they didn’t need a surgery at all for PCI, which is also known as angioplasty. According to the guidelines, a stress test like treadmill waking must be done to check the functions of the heart and it must be done in various cases. But the report has just found out that 44.5% of the patients in this study went through a stress test before they undergone PCI. This means that the percentage taken is very much different, not just in terms of geographic, but also with the characteristics and the age of the doctor who will do the PCI.

How about getting a stress test?

The regional frequency of the stress test differ from 22% to around 70%, according to the researchers, the doctors at the Northeast and Midwest are the ones who can do them well. The stress tests are normally done to women who are ages 85 years old and above, or those with ailments like congestive heart failure, rheumatic heart ailments and lung ailments as well. The stress tests are meant for patients who are under age 40 to 70 years old. There are lots of reasons why people got different rates for the stress test. One may be the guidelines are not clear enough.  There are number of scientific documents that are coming out according to Dr. Redberg.

What is essential?

Those situations might clear things out with the new guidelines that will probably be released by the American College of Cardiology. This is about the release of the correctness criteria about the instance and where PCI is more suitable. There is also no notice given regarding the financial incentive to lessen the amount of pointless angioplasty, according to reports. Altering the Medicare payment method to provide the doctors and the hospitals as well, which will conform to the guidelines, can help in improving health care to the recipients of Medicare benefits while lessening the expenses, according to the report. The non-utilization of the cardiac tests was provided in a study conducted in 1994 and according to this report, those with stable signs of angina might be candidates for PCI and yet they do not get the tests suitable for them before the angioplasty process takes place.