For $75, people can schedule themselves for a little peace of mind with a heart scan and bloodwork at Medical Center Hospital.
Odessa Regional Medical Center offers the same service for the same price.
At Medical Center, they give you an MRI, perform blood work to check cholesterol and give you a calcium score. The price of both all together is $446, but the hospital offers it for $75.
CT Technologist Marlin Reaves said the tests are done to see if a patient needs to “go to the next level,” which would be a CT, angiogram, heart catheter procedure, or maybe just medication.
Dr. Fernando Boccalandro, the chief of staff for cardiology at MCH, reads all the results.
“He will use all this information with the lipid profile, the BMI and he’ll summarize the treatment plan for that patient,” Reaves said.
The patient gets a report that is in layman’s terms. Boccalandro will put his recommendation on the report and the patient can follow up with their doctor.
Reaves said heart disease can affect anyone or any age.
The hospital sees people from 17 counties around the region and people from all over come in for the tests.
“That’s the big thing, if it’s in your genealogy then it’s really good to have it done. That’s what we see with younger people. It’s that their father or their brother, their siblings or whatever, had heart attacks at a young age. That’s a good test for them. The youngest that we did it on (was) because they had an underlying condition, some congenital conditions they were born with, and their doctor recommended (the test). We do it on all age groups. We do a lot of couples. A lot of couples come in together, the husband and wife get them done together, especially the people that work out a lot,” he added.
Some people think they’re healthy when they come in and there’s actually a problem.
“They’ll have a look of shock on their face sometimes because they don’t smoke, they don’t drink, they eat well, they work out, but it’s in their genealogy. … It could be anybody, so it’s a good test for anybody,” Reaves said.
He added that people can schedule their own appointment without a doctor’s referral. But a lot of them schedule themselves based on a doctor’s recommendation. The reports are mailed to the patient’s house.
Reaves said the time that they are taking to do a CT angiogram of the abdomen and pelvis without contrast would be $5,000. But the hospital allows them to charge $75. You come in and sign in, pay. They don’t take walk-ins.
The scan itself takes about one minute and the entire process takes about 30 minutes. The CT scanner is $1.5 million, Reaves said.
The age range for the scan is anywhere from 30 to 90, but they have had younger patients.
“That’s how important it is because we’re trying to keep these people from having a heart attack,” he added.
To schedule an appointment, call 432-640-2255 and the website is mchodessa.com/heartscan
