Kevin Coy, M.D., F.A.C.P, F.A.C.C., is on the cutting edge of a trend in medical care treatment facilities that will transform the quality of care received by cardiac patients in South Florida. He has pioneered this idea with the creation of the Miami International Cardiology Consultants, Inc. ten years ago. This practice which is the largest interventional cardiology group in South Florida with 13 cardiologists on staff opened a campus on Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami and will officially change its name to South Florida International Cardiology Consultants, Inc. in the upcoming year.
The Miami International Cardiology Consultants was recently acquired by Jackson Health System and will act in partnership to develop this campus into a complete out-patient facility. Some of the services offered include cardiac catherization, peripheral angioplasty, electrophysiologic studies, holter monitoring and periphereal vascular studies. When completed, the South Florida International Cardiology Consultants, Inc. campus will be the largest single-cardiac specialty medical park in South Florida allowing patients to have diagnostic testing, physician consultation, cardiology treatment and rehabilitation services all in one location. Future extensions of the practice will include after-hours and urgent care facilities.
“The reason for the creation of this comprehensive interventional cardiology center is to provide patients with a state of the art facility in both scientific practices and quality patient care,” said Dr. Coy, Managing Partner, South Florida International Cardiology Consultants, Inc. “My goal has always been to make patients feel the dedication of the practice. Patients need to be assured that we are providing the most current care available for their particular needs and condition. Healthcare in the U.S. has become impersonal and we are trying to bring back the more empathetic physician-patient relationship.”
The benefits to both the practice and its patients are innumerable. Patients are able to receive high-quality care in a non-hospital setting; while the practice and albeit the hospital are able to attract better qualified physicians because they are able to fold commonplace concerns and issues associated with private practices into the larger Jackson Health System facilities such as insurance reimbursement and malpractice premiums. The specialty practice becomes a natural extension for Jackson Health System combining community medical needs with the facilities of a hospital. This partnership is the first of its kind and is being touted as the future of healthcare practices. Jackson Health System experiences lower patient volume loss; in fact this more sophisticated level of care associates them with an extended patient-base.
In addition to these direct-to-patient services, Dr. Coy and the clinicians at South Florida International Cardiology Consultants, Inc. also have extensive experience in clinical trials both independently and in partnership with pharmaceutical industry partners. This provides patients within the practice access to cutting-edge technological and medicinal practices in interventional cardiology. Currently, they are administering over thirty international and national studies including treatments for heart failure, hypertension and new technologies in defibrillators. One study for aortic valvularplasty will be presented at the 22nd Annual Meeting of Interventional Cardiology in Snowmass, Colorado and was submitted for publication in a medical journal this coming year. The South Florida International Cardiology Consultants, Inc. has the largest experience in Florida Dr. Coy and Dr. Margolis in this non-surgical technique for aortic stenosis and which will pave the future for additional opportunities to replace cardiac valves in non-surgical settings.
Dr. Coy has been pioneering new treatments for cardiology patients for years. He was the first physician in Florida to perform alcohol ablation of patients who have hypertrophic obstructive cardio myopathy. The standard treatment for this condition, which is a thickening of the heart muscle often resulting in shortness of breath, chest pain and heart failure is often surgery. Many patients are a poor candidate to undergo the rigors of surgery and the new non-surgical option that he brought into practice from Europe to the United States is a controlled heart attack that depletes the muscle thickness and relieves symptoms.
The patient demographic of the South Florida International Cardiology Consultants, Inc. consists of an international community, with a large contingent of patients from the Caribbean and South and Central America. Miami is a tremendous medical destination and Dr. Coy is utilizing that as a business opportunity. One of the goals of the new medical campus is to cater to the international client and to the more sophisticated patient who is seeking to avoid hospital bureaucracy. The staff is fluent in five languages in order be able to better cater to their patients; including English, Spanish, Russian, French and Creole. Each cardiologist focuses on different aspects of cardiology sub-specialties within the practice.
“Patients in the U.S. have very high expectations for the medical treatment that they receive. We want to assure them that the quality of care they expect is available in the South Florida market,” said Dr. Coy.
Most patients come to the practice through referrals from physicians and past patients. Sometimes Dr. Coy even gets patients in route to their destination, such as Mike Carricarte, who was flying from South America to Miami and he developed chest pain. When the plane landed, Mr. Carricarte did not have local knowledge in order to seek appropriate care in an emergency situation. It was suggested to him that he either travel directly to the local emergency room or to Dr. Coys facility. At Dr. Coy office, he immediately had a complete evaluation; avoiding long delays in the ER.
The partnership between Jackson Health System and the South Florida International Cardiology Consultants, Inc. provides the practice with complete control over their patients, but being able to access the extensive breadth of experience from the Jackson Health System. This partnership and comprehensive care center has been a result of the dedication of Dr. Coy and his partners. Despite the allure of other buyout opportunities and offers to combine practices with other physicians, Dr. Coy has kept a singular focus allowing him to strategically build a practice with state-of-the-art-care for all cardiology patients. This is a new trend in the area of physician practice management, providing for stricter controls from the practicing physicians and better quality of care for patients.
Dr. Coy is very involved in the international cardiology community, giving back primarily to the Island community where he was born. He is a strong believer in providing physicians in these areas with a higher-level of education and has gone back to teach one-on-one new procedures in the Caribbean each year. He keeps office space in the Cayman Islands where he sees cardiology patients. He worked with the Community Hospital in Curacao to teach the cardiologists on staff implantation techniques for defibrillators. Dr. Coy also began an angioplasty program in Barbados and developed a cardiology education program at the University of West Indies. His goal is to improve the quality of care provided in the Islands to patients by educating physicians about the interventional techniques that are common practice in the U.S.
Dr. Kevin received his Medical Degree with Honors from the University of Florida College of Medicine in 1986. He completed his residency at the University of Florida, Affiliated Hospitals Department of Internal Medicine, his fellowship at Cedars Sinai at the University of California Los Angeles and a fellowship in angioplasty at the San Francisco Heart Institute. He is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Physicians and he is a member of the Florida Society of Internal Medicine.
Dr. Coy has been extensively published in many prestigious medical journals such as Clinical Research, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Journal.
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