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.

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.

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.