When to Skip the ER: The Lifesaving Benefits of Cardiac Urgent Care

If you’ve ever been to an ER in NYC, you know it can be a long and frustrating experience, especially when you aren’t feeling well.

Board-certified cardiologist Dr. Satjit Bhusri and the team at Upper East Side Cardiology understand this all too well, which is why we offer cardiac urgent care right here at our practice.

Let’s take a look at when you might benefit from our cardiac urgent care over the ER.

Heart disease presents differently

According to Hollywood, heart issues such as heart attacks occur suddenly and severely, and it’s impossible to miss the urgency of the event. Although there is some truth to this in many instances, not all cardiac events play out the same

A heart attack occurs every 40 seconds in the United States, and not everyone follows the same sequence or has the same symptoms. In fact, heart attacks can brew for hours, and even days or weeks. And in some cases, the symptoms aren’t signaling a heart attack, but another health issue that may or may not be related to your cardiovascular health.

To be sure, we want you to call 911 if you or a loved one experiences sudden and severe:

• Chest pain
• Pain in the right arm and shoulder
• Pain in the jaw and neck
• Nausea and vomiting
• Dizziness
• Fainting

Our cardiac urgent care can address less severe symptoms that don’t immediately threaten your life.

Urgent care for non-life-threatening symptoms

Our cardiac urgent care service is designed for patients who aren’t experiencing life-threatening symptoms, but less severe developments, such as:

• Mild-to-moderate chest pain
• Heart palpitations
• Lightheadedness or fatigue
• Minor dizziness
• Shortness of breath
• Wheezing that doesn't seem to be related to anything respiratory
• Mild anxiety or restlessness

As you can see, many of these symptoms are the same as a cardiac emergency, but it’s more a matter of degree.

Cardiac urgent care offers a high standard of care

One of the main reasons people head straight to the ER for cardiovascular symptoms is that these facilities are equipped to diagnose patients quickly. Well, our practice offers much of the same equipment, allowing us to make the same quick diagnosis that an ER can, and often quicker.

Our diagnostic services include:

• Electrocardiogram
• Echocardiogram
• On-site lab testing

When it comes to lab testing, one of our first tests is a troponin T test. Troponin T is a protein that's found in your heart muscles. If you’re having a cardiac event, these proteins are forced into your bloodstream, causing the troponin T level to rise sharply.

Another benefit of our cardiac urgent care is that, for existing patients, we have some medical background to work with, which can make a big difference.

We also want to point out that, if you come to our cardiac urgent care and we feel that you should be hospitalized, we can arrange that for you right away. 

So, if you’re feeling off and have developed some of the symptoms that we describe above and you can’t account for them, we strongly urge you to avail yourself of our cardiac urgent care. You can call ahead or walk in during our hours of operation.

If you have further questions about our cardiac urgent care, please don’t hesitate to contact our New York City office on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Call our team at 212-752-3464 or request an appointment online.