Cardiology and Heart Care with Sanitas

Most people who see a cardiologist do not have chest pain. They are breathless on the stairs in a way they did not used to be, or their heart occasionally does something odd, or their blood pressure needs watching. All of those are reasons enough.

When people see a cardiologist

Chest pain is the obvious one, and anything sudden or severe should go to an emergency department rather than a clinic. But most cardiology appointments are calmer than that.

Breathlessness climbing stairs that did not used to be there. Palpitations, a heart that races or skips. Ankles that swell by evening. High blood pressure your doctor wants watching. A family history that makes you want checking before anything goes wrong. Or a routine check because you are over sixty and sensible.

You do not need symptoms to book. A check-up is a legitimate reason.

What actually happens at the appointment

Usually a conversation, your blood pressure, and an ECG, which is a handful of stickers on your chest and a few minutes lying still. It is painless and it takes longer to attach than to run.

From there, depending on what they find: an echocardiogram, which is an ultrasound of your heart; a stress test on a treadmill; or a Holter monitor, a small recorder you wear for a day or two so it catches something that only happens occasionally.

Those tests are the reason to go private. Waiting weeks for a monitor while your heart does something odd is unpleasant, and privately it is usually days.

Waiting periods

The consultation and standard heart tests have no waiting period, so you can be seen from the start of your policy. That includes an ECG and, on most plans, an echocardiogram.

Heart surgery sits under hospitalisation and surgery, which carries a 10-month wait. Emergencies are covered from day one regardless, so a heart attack is covered whether your policy is ten years old or ten days.

See every Sanitas waiting period in one place, including how switching from another insurer waives nearly all of them.

Where the cardiologists are

769 clinics across 48 provinces, with 1,359 named specialists between them – and you can book any of them yourself, without a referral.

• Madrid – 121 clinics, 289 cardiologists
• Barcelona – 115 clinics, 208 cardiologists
• Valencia – 42 clinics, 70 cardiologists
• Malaga – 40 clinics, 57 cardiologists
• Cadiz – 31 clinics, 36 cardiologists
• Girona – 27 clinics, 25 cardiologists
• Seville – 26 clinics, 58 cardiologists

Two provinces have no cardiology clinic in the network – Soria and Teruel – so check what is actually reachable from where you live.

Language at the appointment

This is a specialty where language genuinely matters, because describing chest symptoms accurately is most of the diagnosis, and "a sort of tightness that comes and goes" is hard to convey in a second language. Ask us and we will check who is near you and what languages they work in.

What you pay

Nothing at the clinic on a plan without co-payments, including the tests. On a co-payment plan, a small fixed amount for the consultation and for each test. Since cardiology often means a first appointment plus two or three tests, those add up.

Find a cardiologist near you

Browse cardiologists in the Sanitas directory – by province, with addresses, phone numbers and a map.