PCP-Cardiologist Collaboration: How It Works in Real Life

Everyone agrees primary care physicians (PCPs) need to work together with cardiologists when caring for patients with heart disease, diabetes, and sometimes both conditions.

Medscape Medical News asked for examples of PCP-to-cardiologist referrals that were successful — or not. Here are three success stories and one that could have turned out better.

Diabetes, Hypertension, New-Onset Raynaud’s…at 97

The patient arriving for a primary care visit had diabetes and a history of hypertension. He was 97 years old. But now, “his blood pressure was a little low,” recalled Kimberly Petrick, MD, a family medicine physician at Kaiser Permanente, Santa Monica, California, who was his PCP.

“I messaged the cardiologist — we are able to actually text message our cardiologists — and said, ‘His blood