Cardiologist near Calabasas, CA

There is no CACVI storefront inside Calabasas itself; your appointments take place at our San Fernando Valley cardiology office in Tarzana, 18226 Ventura Blvd, Ste 102, a short hop east on the 101 or down Ventura Boulevard. For nearly everyone in Calabasas that beats a haul into Los Angeles or over the hill for specialist heart care. We would rather send you to a real office with real physicians than plant a marketing address that has no doctor behind it. Phone 818-905-5904 and the team will walk you through directions, where to park, and the short list of items to bring the first time.

Not every murmur is dangerous. Many are "innocent" flow murmurs, but some signal a valve problem such as aortic stenosis (a narrowed aortic valve) or mitral regurgitation (a leaky mitral valve), both of which become more common with age. The way to tell them apart is an echocardiogram — a painless ultrasound of the heart that we perform in our Tarzana office — which shows each valve's structure and how well it opens and closes. If a valve condition is found, the ACC/AHA valvular heart disease guidelines call for periodic surveillance echocardiograms to track severity so that, if the valve eventually needs repair or replacement, the timing is right. Many Calabasas patients with a murmur simply need reassurance and occasional monitoring.

Aortic stenosis is a narrowing of the aortic valve, the main outflow valve of the heart. It is one of the most common valve conditions in older adults and tends to progress slowly, so symptoms — breathlessness, chest tightness, or lightheadedness with exertion — can be mistaken for ordinary aging. We diagnose and grade it by echocardiogram and follow it over time. When it becomes severe and symptomatic, the ACC/AHA guidelines recommend valve replacement, which today is often done with a minimally invasive, catheter-based approach (transcatheter aortic valve replacement, or TAVR) rather than open surgery for suitable patients. We manage the cardiology and monitoring locally and coordinate with a regional heart center for the procedure itself when the time comes.

Staying active in the Calabasas hills is good for your heart, but new or worsening symptoms during exertion should not be ignored. Chest pressure, unusual breathlessness, a racing or irregular heartbeat, or lightheadedness that appears on a climb and eases with rest can be angina from coronary artery disease or a sign of a valve or rhythm problem. The safe move is to stop and, if symptoms are severe or persistent, call 911. For recurring exertional symptoms that resolve with rest, a scheduled stress test — which watches your heart under controlled exertion — is exactly the right tool, and we perform it on site. It lets us clear you to keep hiking or catch a problem before it becomes dangerous.

Atrial fibrillation (AFib) is an irregular, often rapid rhythm in the heart's upper chambers, and its prevalence rises steadily with age as the heart's tissue and electrical system change. It can feel like fluttering, racing, or skipped beats — or cause no symptoms at all. It matters because, per American Heart Association guidance, the quivering chambers let blood pool and form clots that can travel to the brain and cause a stroke; AFib is associated with roughly a fivefold increase in stroke risk. We detect it with EKG and extended rhythm monitoring, then use tools such as the CHA2DS2-VASc score to weigh stroke risk and decide whether blood-thinning therapy, along with rate or rhythm control, is appropriate. For older Calabasas patients, catching silent AFib early is one of the most valuable things we do.

Yes. Heart failure means the heart cannot pump efficiently enough to meet the body's needs, causing shortness of breath, fatigue, and swelling in the legs and ankles — and it becomes more common with age and after years of high blood pressure or coronary disease. The 2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA heart-failure guideline emphasizes early diagnosis, guideline-directed medications, and close monitoring to keep patients stable and out of the hospital. We use echocardiography to measure how well your heart is pumping, adjust medications, track weight and symptoms, and coordinate with your primary care doctor. Managing heart failure well is largely about consistent, frequent follow-up, which is far easier when your cardiologist is minutes away in Tarzana rather than across the city.

It depends on your overall risk, not age alone. The 2018 AHA/ACC Cholesterol Guideline bases the decision on your LDL cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes status, smoking, and family history, and it endorses a coronary artery calcium (CAC) score — a low-radiation CT that measures calcified plaque — as a tie-breaker for people at borderline or intermediate risk who are unsure about starting a statin. A CAC score of zero can reasonably support holding off, while a high score argues for treatment. For active older Calabasas adults who feel well but have a family history or borderline numbers, this objective test often clarifies the decision. We help you weigh the benefits against your preferences rather than applying a one-size-fits-all rule.

The 2017 ACC/AHA Blood Pressure Guideline defines Stage 1 hypertension as 130–139/80–89 mm Hg and Stage 2 as 140/90 mm Hg or higher, measured properly on more than one occasion. Because uncontrolled blood pressure silently strains the heart, kidneys, brain, and arteries — and contributes to heart failure and AFib over time — a cardiology evaluation is reasonable if your readings are consistently in Stage 2, if you already have heart or valve disease, or if your pressure is hard to control on medication. In older adults, treatment targets are individualized to avoid dizziness and falls. At our Tarzana office we confirm the diagnosis, look for organ strain with an echocardiogram, and tailor treatment to your age and risk.

That comes down to your plan. PPO members can usually book with our cardiologists directly, whereas many HMO and Medicare Advantage plans want a referral from your primary care doctor first. When in doubt, call 818-905-5904 and we will confirm your plan's rules before you schedule so nothing trips you up at check-in. Think of a referral as paperwork rather than a medical gate, and we regularly help patients sort it out with their primary doctor. CACVI participates with many major PPO and Medicare plans; ring the office to verify your specific coverage ahead of the visit, since terms differ from one carrier and plan tier to the next.

Nearly all of a routine heart evaluation happens in-house at 18226 Ventura Blvd: the EKG, the echocardiogram (the ultrasound that gauges valve function and pumping strength), treadmill and medication stress testing, and Holter or event monitoring to log your rhythm over hours or days, along with vascular ultrasound and ankle-brachial testing. For a Calabasas patient under watch for valve disease or an arrhythmia, running everything through one office with one team means each study is read against your own earlier scans rather than in isolation. The handful of highly specialized procedures we do not perform here are referred out, arranged by us, with your imaging sent ahead to the treating physician.

Absolutely — cardiology should work hand in hand with your primary care doctor, not around them. We forward our notes, test results, and plan to whoever oversees your general health so everyone shares one chart, and we happily take referrals and questions from Calabasas and West Valley practices. That coordination trims repeat testing, guards against clashing prescriptions (a genuine risk for older patients on several medications), and lets us watch how any adjustment your primary doctor makes to a blood-pressure or diabetes drug lands on your heart. Have no regular doctor yet? We can still assess and manage your cardiac condition and point you to local resources.

When a Calabasas patient needs hospital-level care — admission, an angiogram, or a valve procedure that cannot be done in the office — we coordinate with the acute-care and heart centers serving the West Valley and greater Los Angeles, starting with UCLA West Valley Medical Center in West Hills for emergencies and working with regional programs for complex valve or coronary interventions such as TAVR. The advantage of managing your care locally is continuity: your CACVI cardiologist already knows your history and your prior echocardiograms, so a procedure or hospital stay is planned around a record we hold rather than starting from scratch. We handle the referrals, share your imaging, and resume your outpatient follow-up afterward.