Ready to scratch your head?

Okay… Here’s the question.

“What is the average cost of aortic valve surgery?”

If you know the answer, feel free to skip this blog. But, if you are curious to know about aortic valve replacement costs, please keep reading.

So you know… When I began preparing for my heart valve replacement surgery in 2005, my perspective on money instantly changed.

Following my diagnosis (aortic stenosis ^[1] and aortic regurgitation ^[2]), there were no longer any thoughts about the future value of money – including retirement.

Instead, I started thinking about the now. THE RIGHT NOW! I remember thinking, “I don’t care what it costs, I want to find the best heart surgeon to operate on me.”

After my surgery, I began researching many topics to include in my book, The Patient’s Guide To Heart Valve Surgery ^[3]. One of those topics was the costs of heart valve surgery including aortic valve replacement costs.

Guess what I found? Very little.

Although frustrating, I continued my search to find the average cost of aortic valve surgery. My tenacity paid off and data began to appear on the topic of aortic valve replacement costs.

Specifically, I found three key references for heart valve surgery costs from leading research centers:

• Columbia University. Between 1992 and 1997, length of hospital stay decreased from 13.4 to 8.0 days and cost decreased from $37,047 to $21,856. Similarly, between 1992 and 1997 for mitral valve repair, length of stay decreased from 15.6 to 8.1 days and cost decreased from $45,072 to $21,747. The net result over the time period from 1988 to 1997 was an average decline in the cost of operation of $785 a year, adjusted for other factors.

• National Library of Medicine. Cost per patient was $14,469 for mitral valve replacement, and $11,606 for mitral valve repair.

• At East Carolina University, surgeons say that the hospital gets paid a fixed fee of $25,000 for the total cost of each heart-valve repair regardless of whether robotics are used.

Although I was happy to find some references to the costs of mitral valve repair, mitral valve replacement and robotic surgery, I was not satisfied.

All of the above-referenced costs did not provide any of the patient liability. Given the medical system (HMOs, PPOs, etc.), I was curious to know what the patient had to pay for these procedures from an out-of-pocket perspective.

Therefore, my research continued. What did I do? I dug deep. Very deep into all of my bills and online statements from my aortic and pulmonary valve replacements.

Keep on tickin!