2 out of 5 heart failure patients are not seeing a cardiologist
A significant number of heart failure patients do not meet with their cardiologist at least once per year, according to new data published in European Heart Journal.[1] The findings were also presented live at Heart Failure Congress 2025 in Serbia.
Of course, researchers noted, some patients need to be seen much more often than that.
The analysis focused on more than 650,000 heart failure patients in France. Overall, two out of five patients did not see a cardiologist in the last year. The patients who did see a cardiologist annually were approximately 24% less likely to die in the following year.
“There could be many reasons why heart failure patients do not see a cardiologist,” co-author Nicolas Girerd, MD, PhD, a professor with Nancy University Hospital, said in a statement. “For example, we know that older people and women are less likely to see a cardiologist. We found that patients with another chronic condition, such as diabetes or a lung condition, were also less likely to see a cardiologist. These differences have been found in many countries around the world.”
Girerd’s team emphasized that any heart failure patients who have not recently been hospitalized and are not taking diuretics should see a cardiologist once per year to ensure they are maximizing their odds of long-term survival. This alone could nearly cut a patient’s risk of death in half.
If a patient has been hospitalized in the last year, meanwhile, four cardiologist visits per year may be an ideal schedule.
“Our findings suggest that referrals to cardiology could be made more systematically in heart failure care, in the same way that an oncology referral is part of routine cancer care,” Girerd said. “We have also found that that two very simple criteria—recent hospitalization and diuretic use—can easily stratify patient risk. These criteria don’t involve any expensive tests, so can be used by anyone, in any setting, in any country. These results could help redesign health systems to reduce deaths while preserving resources.”
Heart Failure Congress 2025 is a European Society of Cardiology meeting. Click here for more details.
Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.