Mayo Clinic's approach

Your Mayo Clinic team

At Mayo Clinic, doctors and other health care professionals work closely as a multidisciplinary team to provide coordinated, comprehensive care. This team includes doctors trained in heart disease (cardiologists), doctors trained in heart surgery (cardiac surgeons), and other health care professionals trained in minimally invasive heart surgery. The Mayo Clinic care team works with you to ensure a full, smooth recovery after surgery.

  • Comprehensive care. Mayo doctors take the time to get to know you and work with you to provide exactly the care you need. They review your health and test results to learn if minimally invasive heart surgery is right for you. If minimally invasive or robotic surgery is not an option, open-heart surgery may be done instead. Your care team considers your individual needs and lifestyle to determine the most appropriate treatment for you.
  • Advanced treatment. Mayo Clinic heart surgeons work with an experienced and trained surgical team to perform minimally invasive heart surgery, including robot-assisted heart surgery and thoracoscopic surgery. Minimally invasive heart surgery may have several advantages to open-heart surgery. These include smaller scars, a shorter hospital stay and a quicker overall recovery. Your treatment team may suggest that you participate in the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program at Mayo Clinic. Cardiac rehab is a personalized program of supervised exercise and education to help you get better after heart surgery.
A surgical team performs robot-assisted heart surgery. Robot-assisted heart surgery team at Mayo Clinic

A Mayo Clinic surgeon and surgical team help with robot-assisted heart surgery while another surgeon sits at a remote console controlling the robotic arms.

Advanced heart surgery options

[Music playing]

For generations patients with heart conditions have turned to Mayo Clinic for answers.

Offering the full spectrum of specialized care and treatment options.

Patients are surrounded by a team of heart experts to develop the strongest individualized treatment plans, to provide the safest and most successful surgeries.

There are many ways to reach the heart for surgery. During traditional surgery, the surgeons open the chest to access the heart. With advancing technologies, minimally invasive robotic surgery options are now available to treat a variety of heart conditions. During minimally invasive surgery, the heart is reached through tiny chest incisions.

The surgical team at Mayo Clinic will recommend a unique care plan for each patient for best results, focused on long-term outcomes.

Together we are creating the future of heart care, one patient at a time.

[Music playing]

The Mayo Clinic experience and patient stories

Our patients tell us that the quality of their interactions, our attention to detail and the efficiency of their visits mean health care like they've never experienced. See the stories of satisfied Mayo Clinic patients.

Expertise and rankings

Mayo Clinic heart surgeons have extensive training and experience in performing both traditional and minimally invasive heart surgery to treat a wide variety of heart conditions. Mayo Clinic heart surgeons perform more than 7,200 minimally invasive heart surgeries each year. This includes robot-assisted heart surgery and thoracoscopic surgery.

Mayo Clinic doctors have experience evaluating and treating people with heart valve disease in the Valvular Heart Disease Clinic.

Pediatric heart specialists, including pediatric cardiologists and pediatric heart surgeons, have experience evaluating and treating children with heart disease at Mayo Clinic's campus in Minnesota. Pediatric heart surgeons perform minimally invasive heart surgery in older children. Youth that need to stay in the hospital receive care at Mayo Eugenio Litta Children's Hospital at Mayo Clinic's campus in Minnesota.

Nationally recognized expertise

Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Mayo Clinic in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona, and Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, are ranked among the Best Hospitals for heart and heart surgery by U.S. News & World Report. Mayo Clinic Children's Center in Rochester is ranked the No. 1 hospital in Minnesota, and the five-state region of Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, according to U.S. News & World Report's 2023-2024 "Best Children's Hospitals" rankings.

With Mayo Clinic's emphasis on collaborative care, specialists at each of the campuses — Minnesota, Arizona and Florida — interact very closely with colleagues at the other campuses and the Mayo Clinic Health System.

Mayo Clinic Children's Center

Highly skilled pediatric experts diagnose and treat all types of conditions in children. As a team, we work together to find answers, set goals and develop a treatment plan tailored to your child's needs.

Learn more about the Children's Center.

Locations, travel and lodging

Mayo Clinic has major campuses in Phoenix and Scottsdale, Arizona; Jacksonville, Florida; and Rochester, Minnesota. The Mayo Clinic Health System has dozens of locations in several states.

For more information on visiting Mayo Clinic, choose your location below:

Costs and insurance

Mayo Clinic works with hundreds of insurance companies and is an in-network provider for millions of people.

In most cases, Mayo Clinic doesn't require a physician referral. Some insurers require referrals or may have additional requirements for certain medical care. All appointments are prioritized on the basis of medical need.

Learn more about appointments at Mayo Clinic.

Please contact your insurance company to verify medical coverage and to obtain any needed authorization prior to your visit. Often, your insurer's customer service number is printed on the back of your insurance card.

More information about billing and insurance:

Mayo Clinic in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota

Mayo Clinic Health System

July 13, 2023
  1. What is heart surgery? National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-topics/heart-surgery. Accessed May 2, 2023.
  2. Aldea GS. Minimally invasive aortic and mitral valve surgery. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/search. Accessed May 2, 2023.
  3. Newer heart valve surgery options. American Heart Association. https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/heart-valve-problems-and-disease/understanding-your-heart-valve-treatment-options/newer-heart-valve-surgery-options. Accessed June 9, 2023.
  4. Patient education: Minimally invasive surgery (the basics). https://www.uptodate.com/contents/search. Accessed June 9, 2023.
  5. Sellke FW, et al., eds. Minimally invasive, mini-thoracotomy aortic valve replacement. In: Atlas of Cardiac Surgical Techniques. 2nd ed. Elsevier; 2019. https://www.clinicalkey.com. Accessed June 9, 2023.
  6. Ami TR. Allscripts EPSi. Mayo Clinic. May 12, 2023.
  7. Abdelbar A, et al. Minimally invasive tricuspid valve surgery. Journal of Thoracic Disease. 2021; doi: 10.21037/jtd-20-1331.
  8. Masroor M, et al. Minimally invasive left internal mammary artery harvesting techniques during the learning curve are safe and achieve similar results as conventional LIMA harvesting techniques. Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery. 2022; doi:10.1186/s13019-022-01961-0.
  9. Kenawy A, et al. Minimally invasive resection of benign cardiac tumors. Journal of Thoracic Disease. 2021; doi:10.21037/jtd-20-1201.
  10. Aldea G. Minimally invasive aortic and mitral valve surgery. https://www.uptodate.com/contents/search. Accessed May 17, 2023.
  11. Karangelis D, et al. Minimally invasive cardiac surgery: in the pursuit to treat more and hurt less. Journal of Thoracic Disease. 2021; doi:10.21037/jtd-21-1498.
  12. Arghami A, et al. Robotic mitral valve repair: a decade of experience with echocardiographic follow-up. Annals of Thoracic Surgery. 2022; doi:10.1016/j.athoracsur.2021.08.083.
  13. Rowse PG (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic. May 17, 2023.

Minimally invasive heart surgery