Payal Kohli, MD, FACC

Harvard-educated preventive and noninvasive cardiologist, Founder & Medical Director of Cherry Creek Heart, and Colorado’s trusted on-air medical expert.

An international leader in prevention — caring for patients here at home.

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death for men and women — and yet so much of it can be prevented. That conviction is at the heart of everything Dr. Payal Kohli does. An internationally recognized expert in cardiovascular medicine specializing in general, preventive and cardiometabolic cardiology, she founded Cherry Creek Heart on a simple belief: the most meaningful care happens long before a crisis — in an unhurried conversation, in a plan built around your life, and in a partnership that helps you live better, not just longer.

Her path to your exam room runs through some of the finest institutions in medicine. She graduated from MIT with a perfect GPA and from Harvard Medical School magna cum laude, trained in Internal Medicine at Harvard’s Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and completed her Cardiovascular Disease fellowship at UCSF. She went on to complete four advanced fellowships in all — Cardiovascular Disease, Advanced Echocardiography, Preventive Cardiology, and Clinical Research with Harvard’s renowned TIMI Study Group under Dr. Eugene Braunwald. Today she is an Associate Adjunct Professor of Cardiology at both Johns Hopkins University and Duke University, where she teaches the next generation of cardiologists. At Johns Hopkins, she is also faculty at the prestigious Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease.

Dr. Kohli has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications in journals including JAMA, The Lancet, Circulation and JACC, and was an early contributor to landmark clinical trials of PCSK9 inhibitors, a breakthrough class of cholesterol-lowering therapies. She has served as Associate Editor of JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging and as the inaugural Media Editor of JACC. She was named the 2022 “Cardiologist of the Year” by the American College of Cardiology’s Colorado Chapter and the 2024 “Gifted Educator of the Year” by the American College of Cardiology, and is a 5280 Top Doctor.

A gifted communicator, she has made thousands of local and national television appearances and is the trusted medical expert for 9News and KOSI 101 in Denver. Through her YouTube channel and her podcast, HeART of Medicine, she makes complex medicine understandable — for patients and colleagues alike.

Yet what her patients remember most isn’t her résumé. It’s that she listens. That she answers every question. That she treats them like family. Dr. Kohli built Cherry Creek Heart so that care could feel personal again — fewer patients, longer visits, and a doctor who truly knows you. Because you don’t always get a second chance at your health, and you deserve someone fully in your corner.