Robert J. Caccavale, MD, FACS
Find heart disease before it finds you.
Preventive cardiovascular and metabolic medicine from a board-certified cardiothoracic surgeon who spent thirty years operating on the damage — and the last twelve preventing it.
Membership from $2,600 a year.
No cost. No obligation. You speak with the practice, not a call center.
Trusted by physicians who know his work
“It is my distinct pleasure to endorse his practice… I do not make this endorsement lightly.”
Thomas Dayspring, MD, FACP, FNLALipidologist and educator
“He has been my go-to physician for myself and my family.”
Alan R. Hartman, MDCardiac surgeon
- Physician-led
- Private and confidential
- Your results are yours to keep
- Video visits
Is this for you
Worth being direct about who this serves.
This is an investment of money and attention. If it is not right for you, we would rather you learn that here than after a blood draw.
A good fit if you
- Have a family history of heart disease, stroke or diabetes and want to know your own position
- Passed your physical but do not feel the way you expect to feel
- Take medication and want to understand the number underneath it
- Want to be told what your data says, not only what to do about it
- Will actually change something once you have the information
Not the right place if you
- Need acute or emergency care — call 911
- Want a prescription without the evaluation behind it
- Are looking for a supplement protocol rather than a physician
- Expect insurance to cover this; the membership is paid directly
- Want different results without changing how you eat, move or sleep
Before your call, be ready to talk about
Whether a parent, sibling or child has had a heart attack, stroke, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol or elevated Lp(a), and how early · your own medications · when you last had bloodwork · what you are hoping to learn.
The practice
From treating disease to getting ahead of it.
For three decades Dr. Caccavale cared for patients with serious disease. Work like that raises a question surgery cannot answer: sitting with someone whose illness is already advanced, you begin to ask what could have been recognized earlier, and what anyone would have had to measure to see it.
Prevention is not a departure from that career. It is the same medicine, applied sooner.
Testing creates information. Judgment makes it useful.
Modern diagnostics can produce an extraordinary amount of data. More testing does not, by itself, produce better health. A result only means something alongside your age, your history, your medications, and the strength of the evidence behind the test itself.
So testing is selected for the individual, not ordered from a checklist — and Dr. Caccavale tells you plainly what follows, including when the answer is that nothing needs to change.
What happens
From first call to six-month review.
This is a program you run, with a physician alongside you. Nothing happens to you passively, and you keep every result.
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Introductory call
Together
Fifteen minutes to understand what you’re looking for and whether the practice is a good fit. No charge.
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Become a member
Your move
If you decide to proceed, enroll securely through Stripe — card or bank transfer, billed once a year.
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Complete your lab work
Your move
Dr. Caccavale orders your lab work; it’s drawn at any Quest location after a twelve-hour fast. Coverage and patient responsibility vary by plan.
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Meet with Dr. Caccavale
Ours
A 90-minute video consultation to review your history and results and decide what deserves attention.
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Your plan, and the six-month review
Together
A written plan, direct access between visits, and a repeat panel and consultation about six months later.
What we evaluate
Cardiovascular and metabolic risk, in depth.
Cardiovascular risk does not always announce itself.
A person can feel well, exercise regularly and have reassuring routine labs while still carrying inherited or metabolic risk that deserves a closer look. The purpose is not to search for problems. It is to understand risk well enough to know when something deserves attention — and when it does not.
Measure. Decide. Reassess.
Testing is useful only if it can inform a decision. When something deserves action, Dr. Caccavale develops a plan, measures the response and adjusts course when the evidence supports it. Sometimes that means lifestyle. Sometimes medication or further evaluation. Sometimes nothing needs to change.
A deeper look, when it could change a decision.
Advanced lipids
- ApoB
- A measure of the number of cholesterol-carrying particles that contribute to atherosclerotic risk.
- Lp(a)
- A largely inherited risk factor not included in a routine cholesterol panel.
- NMR lipoprotein analysis
- Additional detail on particle number and size when it adds useful context.
Metabolic health
- HbA1c
- A longer-term view of blood glucose than a single fasting measurement.
- Fasting glucose and insulin-related markers
- Read alongside history and body composition to understand metabolic health more completely.
Inflammation and clinical context
- hs-CRP
- One piece of the inflammatory picture when clinically useful.
- Kidney · thyroid · iron · blood counts · vitamin D
- Supporting information that can change how other findings are interpreted.
When the history calls for more
Selected inherited-risk testing, cardiac markers, hormone testing and other targeted studies — used when the result could change how a patient is managed.
Testing is individualized. These are examples, not a fixed panel.
Why we count particles
Two patients. Identical cholesterol. Different risk.
| Measure | Patient A | Patient B |
|---|---|---|
| Told his numbers look fine. They do. | Told the same thing. The same panel says otherwise. | |
| LDL cholesterol | 96 | 96 |
| ApoB | 72 | 128 |
| Triglycerides | 78 | 186 |
| Fasting insulin | 4.1 | 17.3 |
The two panels agree on cholesterol and disagree on risk. When triglycerides are high and particles are cholesterol-poor, it takes more of them to carry the same mass — so LDL-C reads reassuringly while particle count is high. Lipidologists call this discordance. Illustrative figures in mg/dL and µIU/mL, shown to explain the mechanism, not to describe any individual patient.
Care coordination
He talks to your other doctors.
Bring the results you already have. Dr. Caccavale reviews what your other physicians have ordered and, with your permission, speaks with them directly — so your care is coordinated rather than run in parallel by people who never talk to each other.
When something needs attention outside preventive medicine, he does not hand you a list and wish you luck. Thirty years practising in New Jersey means he usually knows whom to call, and he makes the introduction himself.
What coordination includes
Review
Existing records, imaging and results are considered before any work is duplicated.
Communicate
With your permission, Dr. Caccavale speaks directly with your other physicians.
Refer
When another specialist is needed, he helps identify the right expertise and makes the introduction where possible.
The evidence
We would rather show you the papers than tell you how we feel about prevention.
Every claim on this page traces to published work. Where the literature is contested, we say so.
~50%
Among 136,905 hospitalisations for coronary artery disease, almost half of patients had an admission LDL cholesterol below 100 mg/dL. A reassuring cholesterol number is not the same as low risk.
412,013
In a clinical-laboratory dataset of that size, apolipoprotein B and LDL particle number disagreed with one another often enough to matter. The pattern tracked insulin resistance.
Varvel, Dayspring et al., Journal of Clinical Lipidology, 2015
ApoB
A review argues that apolipoprotein B is the better primary measure of lipoprotein-related risk than LDL cholesterol or non-HDL cholesterol. Its title is “The Debate Is Over.”
Lower, longer
Cumulative exposure to LDL cholesterol, rather than any single reading, is a key driver of atherosclerotic risk. Which is an argument for measuring earlier rather than harder.
Mhaimeed et al., American Journal of Preventive Cardiology, 2024
Dr. Dayspring has mentored Dr. Caccavale since 2015 and has endorsed this practice in writing; his published work is cited on its merits.
Membership
Priced so you can decide before you call.
The membership is paid directly and is not billed to insurance. Laboratory work is billed separately by Quest, and coverage varies by plan.
Start here
$2,600 / year
- Two 90-minute video consultations with Dr. Caccavale, six months apart
- Two comprehensive lab assessments, selected for your risk profile — drawn at any Quest location
- Full panel contents and reference ranges sent to you before each draw
- A written plan after each visit
- Direct phone and email access to Dr. Caccavale between visits
- Evening and weekend appointments available
- Medication review: what you need, what you don’t, and how to get it at the lowest cost
- Additional testing between visits, at cost
- Every result is yours to keep
Concierge
$15,000 / year, per person
- Everything in Membership
- Unlimited lab assessments and consultations, whenever a question needs answering
- Dr. Caccavale by phone, directly, without a gatekeeper
- Same-week appointments, including evenings
- A written annual strategy, revised as your numbers move
- Coordination with your cardiologist, primary physician and specialists
- Second-opinion review and specialist referral
- Imaging and advanced testing arranged and interpreted, billed at cost
- Spouse enrolled at a reduced rate
About
Robert J. Caccavale, MD, FACS
He helped pioneer video-assisted thoracic surgery — his group published the first VATS case report in the world — and performed more than 5,000 procedures, while teaching at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He was named a New Jersey Top Doctor nine times.
He founded Absolute Health in 2014 and expanded his practice into preventive cardiovascular and metabolic medicine: he completed the National Lipid Association’s Masters in Lipidology program, trained in continuous glucose monitoring and lifestyle medicine, and has studied since 2015 under Dr. Thomas Dayspring.
He sees every patient himself, spends ninety minutes on a first consultation, and writes the plan himself afterward. When a question belongs to another specialist, he says so.
Credentials and experience
- MD, State University of New York at Buffalo
- Surgical training: NYU, Booth Memorial Medical Center, SUNY Downstate (cardiovascular and thoracic)
- Diplomate, American Board of Thoracic Surgery
- Fellow, American College of Surgeons
- Former Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
- Named a New Jersey Top Doctor nine times
- National Lipid Association Masters in Lipidology program
- Mentored by Thomas Dayspring, MD since 2015
Patient experience
Jim StrykerAbsolute Health patient“Dr. Caccavale takes a personal interest. This isn’t a 10-minute physical … but rather a continuing conversation about my health options and the future. He also gives me access and translation to the mystery of the medical profession.”
Becoming a patient
Interested in becoming a patient?
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Schedule a 15-minute introductory call
Pick a time that suits you. No charge.
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Call the practice
Monday to Friday. Leave a message outside those hours and the call will be returned.
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Leave your details
Contact details only. Please do not send medical information — this form is not a secure channel for it.
Already a patient? Current patient access →
Common questions
Before you call.
My last physical was normal. Why would I do this?
That is the most common reason people come here. A normal physical rules out present disease; it does not measure the trajectory you are on, and a standard panel does not include the markers that move earliest. Two people with identical cholesterol can carry very different risk.
What happens on the 15-minute call?
A short conversation about what you are looking for, how the practice works, and whether it is a fit. No testing, no diagnosis, no obligation. If it is not a fit, he will say so and point you somewhere better.
Can you get me off my medication?
We cannot promise that, and any practice that does should worry you. What Dr. Caccavale can do is measure what is driving the number, work on it, and measure again. Changes to medication are made on evidence — by him if he prescribes it, or with your other physician if they do.
Do I have to stop seeing my regular doctor?
No. This is additive. With your permission he shares results with your primary physician or cardiologist and speaks with them directly when something needs attention.
Begin
You can know your position in about three weeks.
Start with a fifteen-minute conversation.
Confidential · No obligation · (908) 975-0970
What arrives first
- Your lab requisition and the full panel contents, by email
- A blood draw at any Quest location
- Your results, with reference ranges, in writing
- Ninety minutes with the physician who reads all of it with you