The price of every test, how much of your day it takes, what prep it requires, and the situations where a guideline says not to do it.
6 business days
Average wait for a first visit. February 2026 average, measured from the clinic's own schedule.1
$95
Electrocardiogram with a signed report the same day. Price list in effect since January 1, 2026.1
695,000
Deaths from heart disease in the United States in 2021, by the CDC's count — about one in every five deaths that year. Heart disease has led the country's causes-of-death table for decades.2
119.9 million
Adults with high blood pressure under the 130/80 definition — 48.1 % of US adults, by CDC estimates. Measured, not self-reported: the NHANES survey takes your pressure during the exam instead of asking about it.3
What a guideline calls normal
The numbers in these three tables don't come from the clinic. They come from the 2017 ACC/AHA blood-pressure guideline and the 2018 AHA/ACC cholesterol guideline. They're here so you can check your own numbers before booking anything.45
A single high reading doesn't make a diagnosis of hypertension. Normal requires both conditions at once — below 120 and below 80 — while stage 1 begins when either number reaches 130 or 80. The diagnosis itself wants an average of two or more readings, taken on two or more occasions.4
When your office pressure is normal, the advice is to measure again once a year. The elevated band gets lifestyle changes and a recheck in three to six months — office measurements, not a 24-hour study.4
Blood pressure measured in the office, adults 18 and older.4
Classification
Systolic
Diastolic
Normal
below 120
and below 80
Elevated
120 to 129
and below 80
Stage 1
130 to 139
or 80 to 89
Stage 2
140 or more
or 90 or more
Crisis
above 180
and/or above 120
The same diagnosis changes numbers with the device and the time of day.4
Where the pressure was measured
Systolic
Diastolic
Office
140 or more
90 or more
24 hours, full-day mean
130 or more
80 or more
24 hours, awake mean
135 or more
85 or more
24 hours, asleep mean
120 or more
70 or more
Home device
135 or more
85 or more
What the 2018 cholesterol guideline says at each level of calculated risk.5
Risk category
10-year risk
What the guideline says
Established disease
calculator not used
high-intensity statin; add more if LDL stays at 70 or above
LDL 190 or more
any
statin, regardless of the calculator
Intermediate
7.5 to 20 %
statin favored; a calcium score can break a tie
Borderline
5 to 7.5 %
risk enhancers tip the decision
Low
below 5 %
lifestyle first
LDL values in mg/dL. What counts as a risk enhancer is a full sentence, not a number, so it moved out of the table:5
Family history. A first-degree relative with premature cardiovascular disease — before 55 in a man, before 65 in a woman
Conditions. Chronic kidney disease, metabolic syndrome, or a chronic inflammatory disease such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis or HIV
Lipids. LDL persistently at 160 or above, or triglycerides persistently at 175 or above
History specific to women. Preeclampsia, or menopause before 40
Why the target moves from person to person
The same LDL of 120 mg/dL is acceptable for someone whose calculated risk is under 5 % in ten years, and far off the mark for someone who has already had a heart attack. The calculation is the Pooled Cohort Equations, which combine age, sex, blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes and smoking.5
Hence the order: the risk calculation first, the decision after. Without it, the number that came back from the lab has nothing to be compared against, and the test you paid for decides nothing.
What moves someone up a category
Diabetes of long standing, kidney disease with filtration below 60, a first-degree relative with early heart disease, smoking, metabolic syndrome. The guideline calls these risk enhancers, and they move a person between categories without any cholesterol number changing.5
Seven tests, each with a price and a limit
Duration, prep and price are this clinic's own operating data, and they carry note 1. The third column is the most important on the page, and it comes in two kinds.
Resting electrocardiogram$95
Ten stickers on your chest, arms and legs record the electrical impulse that makes the heart contract. It shows the rhythm, looks for signs of an old heart attack, measures chamber strain and finds conduction blocks. It does not show blocked arteries and does not measure pumping strength.
When not to do it: as screening in an adult with no symptoms and low cardiovascular risk. The US Preventive Services Task Force grades that use D, which is a recommendation against. At intermediate or high risk it gives a grade I, insufficient evidence — a different thing: there, the decision goes back to the visit.6
Transthoracic echocardiogram$450
An ultrasound of the heart beating. It measures the ejection fraction — the percentage of blood the ventricle manages to push out with each beat — and shows how the four valves work, how thick the walls are, and the pressure inside the chambers.
House rule, no guideline cited. We looked for a formal recommendation against repeating a routine echocardiogram and did not find one we could cite here from a primary source. The clinic's rule is to order a repeat when there is a new symptom, a new murmur, a medication change, or a question the previous study doesn't answer. Without any of the four, the front desk warns you that the test will probably repeat last year's report — and you decide.
Treadmill stress test$325
You walk on a treadmill that gets faster and steeper every three minutes, with the electrocardiogram and your blood pressure recorded the whole time. What matters is what shows up when the heart needs more blood than at rest: an electrical change, a drop in pressure, an arrhythmia that only appears with exertion, and how much exertion you can take. The AHA's exercise standards call for a protocol calibrated to an exercise time of 8 to 12 minutes.7
When not to do it: to screen an adult with no symptoms and low risk, under the same grade D that covers the resting electrocardiogram.6 There are also absolute contraindications, where the test must not be run: a heart attack within the last two days, unstable angina not yet stabilized, an uncontrolled arrhythmia causing symptoms, symptomatic severe aortic stenosis, decompensated heart failure, acute pulmonary embolism, acute myocarditis or pericarditis, acute aortic dissection.7
24-hour Holter monitor$350
A recorder the size of a phone stays with you for a full day, logging every beat. It exists to catch what lasts a few seconds and never happens during the visit: a pause, a burst of tachycardia, frequent extra beats, atrial fibrillation that comes and goes. You note the time of your symptoms in a diary, and the report matches each symptom against that minute's tracing.
House rule, no guideline cited. The test's limitation is arithmetic and doesn't depend on any guideline: it records 24 hours. If your episode happens once a month, the chance of it landing inside the recording is small, and a normal result rules out nothing. When the symptom is rare, the clinic talks about a longer-term recorder before selling you this one.
24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring$250
A cuff on your arm measures your pressure automatically across a full day, awake and asleep. It separates true hypertension from pressure that only rises in front of a doctor, catches the reverse of that, and shows whether your pressure dips at night the way it should. Its thresholds are lower than the office's, and they're in the second table on this page.4
House rule, no guideline cited. For checking on someone whose pressure is already controlled, what the guideline recommends is a yearly office measurement.4 This test exists to settle a doubtful diagnosis. The clinic doesn't sell it as routine follow-up for people who already measure at home.
Coronary calcium score$150
A fast CT of the chest, without contrast, that counts the calcium deposited in the walls of the heart's arteries. The result is a number, and it exists to break ties for people who land in the middle of the risk calculation: in the 2018 guideline, a score of 100 Agatston units or more argues for starting a statin, and a score of zero can justify holding off.5
House rule, no guideline cited. If your risk calculation already came back high, the score changes neither the plan nor the prescription, and the clinic doesn't order it. It uses radiation, so it isn't repeated routinely at short intervals either. It earns its keep at intermediate risk, where the decision about starting medication is genuinely in doubt.
Coronary CT angiography$950
A CT with contrast in a vein that draws the inside of the heart's arteries and shows where they narrow, and by how much. It's the strongest test for ruling out coronary disease in someone with chest pain and intermediate risk: when it comes back clean, the chance of a significant blockage is very low.
House rule, no guideline cited. This is the most expensive test on the list and the one that uses iodinated contrast. The clinic only schedules it with a written order that states the clinical question, and doesn't offer it to people without chest pain. If your case already calls for a catheterization, you gain nothing by coming through here first.
The heart under load tells a different story
At rest, an artery can be badly narrowed without leaving a trace on the electrocardiogram: the flow that's left still covers the job. The shortfall shows up when demand climbs. That's why the treadmill exists — and why the tracing beside this section just sped up.
The conventional normal range for resting heart rate is 60 to 100 beats per minute, measured on the electrocardiogram with you sitting or lying down. Trained endurance athletes often sit below that range without it being disease.7
Heart-rate recovery is part of what the test reads: how fast your rate falls in the first minute after you stop carries prognostic information of its own, separate from anything electrical.7
What the report gives back
How much exertion you took, measured in METs — multiples of your energy burn at rest. Whether your pressure rose the way it should. Whether your heart rate came back down after stopping. And whether an electrical change or an arrhythmia appeared during exercise.
When the test is stopped before the end
A drop in pressure, chest pain that appears and builds, a new arrhythmia, or you asking to stop. A test stopped early still counts: the reason for stopping is information, and it goes in the report.
The disagreement nobody explains at the front desk
For screening an adult with no symptoms and low risk, the task force's grade is D — a recommendation against. At intermediate or high risk the grade is I, insufficient evidence, which sends the decision back to the exam room instead of settling it.6 The two grades coexist, and that's why the same test is refused in one office and ordered in another. Asking which of the two cases you are in is a legitimate exam-room question.
Palpitations, extra beats, fibrillation
Feeling your heart stumble is common, and it almost always corresponds to an extra beat: one that comes early, followed by a pause longer than usual. What you notice is usually the pause, or the strong beat that comes after it. The line beside this section is drawing exactly that, once every six beats.
Usually benign
An isolated extra beat in a structurally normal heart, with no fainting and no family history of sudden death.
Palpitations that start and stop together with coffee, a bad night's sleep, alcohol or a scare.
A resting rate below 60 in someone who trains for endurance — a conditioned heart, not a sick one.
A strong beat felt at night, lying on your left side, when the heart rests against the chest wall and you hear what was always there.
Worth evaluating, without panic
Palpitations with fainting or near-fainting. The combination of the two changes the urgency.
An irregular pulse with no pattern at all that lasts for hours — the classic finding of atrial fibrillation, which raises the risk of stroke.
Sudden death in a first-degree relative before age 50. That changes the workup even for someone feeling fine.
Palpitations that start during exertion, not in the rest that follows it.
Extra beats that get more frequent as effort increases, instead of disappearing.
A test ordered without a question protects no one.
It finds things that were going to sit there anyway, and opens a line behind them.
Night clinic, 7 pm to 7 am
A cardiologist on site at the clinic, every night, holidays included. It exists for what can't wait until tomorrow but doesn't need an ambulance either: pressure that spiked and won't come down, palpitations that started today, a medication adjustment after an episode, a question about a result that arrived at 10 pm.
What the night clinic handles
An electrocardiogram on the spot, read by the doctor on duty. Serial blood-pressure measurements. A dose adjustment. A written referral to the emergency department when that's the answer — with the tracing printed and in the hand of whoever goes.
What it doesn't do
Catheterization, admission, thrombolysis, surgery. The clinic has no beds and no cath lab. Anyone arriving with a heart attack in progress leaves by ambulance for a hospital that has one, and every minute weighs in that transfer.
How it works
Triage by a nurse within 10 minutes, and care in order of severity. Whoever arrived first may end up waiting. A night-clinic visit costs $250, self-pay.1
911
Chest pain right now, shortness of breath at rest, fainting, slurred speech or weakness on one side of the body: call 911.
Emergency crews answer around the clock and arrive with a defibrillator inside the ambulance. Don't take the car, don't come to the clinic, and don't wait to see if it passes. The night clinic here handles a lot of things, and a heart attack in progress is not on the list.
The hard part of publishing prices is also publishing when not to sell.
The list follows.
When you don't need a cardiologist
Every item below has walked through our front door. In all of them, the honest answer was to send the person home, or somewhere else, with no test at all. Where a guideline stands behind that, it's cited; where none does, the position is declared as the clinic's own.
You're under 35, have no risk factors, and your gym asked for a stress test to clear you for exercise. Screening exercise ECG in an adult with no symptoms and low risk carries a grade D — the grade reserved for recommendations against.6 The clinic's position on top of that: starting light or moderate exercise is not, by itself, a reason for a treadmill test.
You're under 40, no symptoms, no early heart disease in the family, and you want a heart check-up. Screening with a resting or exercise electrocardiogram in that situation has a recommendation against it, grade D.6 Blood pressure, glucose and a lipid panel come from your primary care doctor, at a fraction of this price.
Your pressure read 150/95 once, on a pharmacy machine, on a bad day. The diagnosis takes repeated readings on different days, and the home and 24-hour thresholds are lower than the office's — they're in the second table on this page.4 Start by logging at home: seated, after five minutes still, twice a day for a week. Bring the notebook to your primary care doctor.
Your last office reading was normal and you want to check it again. The guideline's advice is to measure once a year.4 A cardiology visit now, with nothing new, most likely ends with that same advice — and our bill.
Chest pain that gets worse when you press it with a finger, twist your torso, or take a deep breath. That pattern points to the chest wall. Artery pain tends to come with exertion, squeeze rather than stab, and ease with rest. Clinic's position: worth a visit, and the door in is your primary care doctor.
Your cholesterol came back high, you've never tried changing food or activity, and your calculated risk didn't come back high. What the guideline prescribes depends on the risk category, and at low risk the answer starts with lifestyle — not a prescription, and not a scan.5 The calculation comes before the pill and before any CT.
You want to repeat the echocardiogram because it's been a year since the last one, and you have no new symptoms. Clinic's position, no guideline cited: the test will most likely repeat the previous report. The front desk says so before booking.
You're 28, your heart races when you're anxious, and the electrocardiogram from three months ago was normal. Clinic's position: repeating it now, with nothing new, very probably returns the same piece of paper.
Who you'll see
Three cardiologists — no residents and no rotating agency doctors. Whoever signs your report is whoever examined you. Names, training and license numbers are fiction, like the rest of the clinic.1
Marina S. Okabe, MD
IL license 036-999999 · ABIM board-certified
Medical degree from Northwestern University, 2008. Internal medicine residency and cardiology fellowship at Rush University Medical Center. Board-certified in cardiovascular disease, 2014. Focuses on stress testing and cardiac rehabilitation. Sees patients in the mornings.
Richard F. Bennett, MD
IL license 036-999998 · ABIM board-certified
Medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine, 2003. Cardiology fellowship at Loyola University Medical Center. Additional training in clinical electrophysiology, 2009. Handles the arrhythmia cases and reads the practice's Holter studies. Afternoons, plus three nights a week at the night clinic.
Helena C. Ashford, MD
IL license 036-999997 · ABIM board-certified
Medical degree from the University of Wisconsin, 2012. Cardiology fellowship at the University of Chicago, with a final year in cardiovascular imaging. Signs the echocardiograms and the CT reports. Mornings, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Waiting times and scheduling
The clinic measures the wait for each kind of visit and republishes the numbers on the first business day of every month. These are February 2026's. There is no public benchmark for cardiology wait times to put next to them: we looked and found none.1
Business days between the request and the date offered. The month's average and worst case.1
Visit
Average
Worst case
Price
First visit
6
11
$350
Follow-up within 90 days
3
7
no charge
Electrocardiogram
1
2
$95
Echocardiogram
4
9
$450
Treadmill stress test
5
10
$325
24-hour Holter
2
5
$350
24-hour ABPM
2
5
$250
Calcium score
7
14
$150
CT angiography
9
18
$950
Night-clinic visit
walk-in
—
$250
Where
1402 W Webster Ave, Lincoln Park, Chicago, IL 60614. Monday to Saturday, 7 am to 7 pm. Night clinic from 7 pm to 7 am, every day.
How to book
By phone, 7 am to 7 pm, with a person on the other end of the line. You hear the price before you're offered a date.
The clinic doesn't bill insurance and doesn't file claims with your plan. Your receipt comes itemized with CPT codes, and you decide whether to submit it for out-of-network reimbursement.
What to bring
Your old test results, even the ones you think don't matter, and the medications you take, in their bottles. Comparing against last year's tracing answers questions no new test can.