Our Approach
What we look for
Your annual physical does not scan your heart. Here is what a scan adds, and what we will not claim.
Your annual physical does not scan your heart. Here is what a scan adds, and what we will not claim.
The Short Answer
A physical examination is good at what it is good at. It is not an instrument for measuring how much blood your left ventricle moves with each beat, how thick the muscle wall has become, or how far a valve actually opens. Some heart conditions announce themselves as a murmur. Others are silent to every part of a routine physical, and stay silent until they are not.
That gap is the entire reason a scan exists. It is not a criticism of anyone's physician — it is a description of what the tools do.
Measured Directly
The Standard
Significant means our medical director would act on it or schedule surveillance for it. That is Dr. Glenn Gandelman, MD, MPH, FACC, FASE, a board-certified cardiologist, and his read is the arbiter — not the scan, and not the sonographer who performed it.
The distinction that matters most is whether a finding was already known. Something you walked in already carrying a diagnosis for proves nothing about screening. Something you did not know about is the whole argument for it.
Limits
Questions
A stethoscope hears sound. It does not measure how much blood the left ventricle moves with each beat, how thick the muscle wall has become, or how a valve is actually moving. Some conditions produce a murmur that a careful examiner will catch. Others produce nothing audible at all. An echocardiogram measures the structure directly.
One that our medical director, Dr. Glenn Gandelman, MD, MPH, FACC, FASE, a board-certified cardiologist, would act on or schedule surveillance for. Not every incidental note on a report qualifies. The cardiologist's read is the arbiter, not the scan and not the sonographer.
Not yet, and we would rather say so than publish a number we cannot stand behind. We are logging findings prospectively from September 2026. When the sample is large enough and the record is contemporaneous rather than remembered, we will publish the rate and keep publishing it as it moves, including if it moves against us.
We are not the right party to make that call. Emanuel Papadakis is a registered sonographer, not a physician, and BlackPoint issues no screening recommendation of its own. Where a recognised body has published guidance, we point to it and name it. Whether screening fits your situation is a conversation for you and your physician.
The written report reaches you in 24 to 48 hours, and goes to your physician if you ask us to send it. It describes what was seen and what the cardiologist recommends as the next step. We do not treat, and we do not prescribe.
References
Heidenreich PA, Bozkurt B, Aguilar D, et al. “2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure.” Circulation, 2022. ahajournals.org
Otto CM, Nishimura RA, Bonow RO, et al. “2020 ACC/AHA Guideline for the Management of Patients With Valvular Heart Disease.” acc.org
US Preventive Services Task Force recommendation statements, uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org
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