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"How Long Will I Be In The Hospital?" Asks Wayne

Written By: Adam Pick, Patient Advocate, Author & Website Founder
Page Last Updated: May 20, 2025

I just received a great question from Wayne. He writes, "Adam - At the ripe age of 62, I'll be having my mitral valve replaced due to severe regurgitation from prolapse (To learn more about prolapsed mitral valves, click here.). I know a woman who was in the hospital for 9 days. Is it common for valve patients to be in the hospital for that long? Thanks for all that you do! Wayne"

There are really three answers to this question. The first answer I'll provide is based on patient data I collected during a survey. In that survey, I asked over 75 former surgical heart valve patients the question, "How long were you in the hospital?" As you can see on the chart below, the average response was 5 days. At the same time, there are patients who undergo less-invasive operations, including robotic mitral valve surgery, that may go home in 3 days.

Patient Days In Hospital Following Valve Surgery

The second answer is for patients who have catheter-based heart valve operations. Those patients may go home between 1 to 3 days. That's right. Patients who receive minimally-invasive therapies including transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) are in the hospital for a much shorter time because there is no incision to the patient's chest or ribs. In addition, transcatheter patients do not go on the heart-lung machine and many of them do not go under general anesthesia. That said, transcatheter therapies are not available and/or recommended for all patients. So, please discuss this with your doctor.

Lastly, I'll provide a third answer t0 Wayne's question which is, "It depends". As I have learned over the years, every patient case is unique. In some situations, I know patients that have left the hospital after two days. In other cases, due to heart surgery complications, I know patients who stayed in the hospital for more than three weeks.

I hope that helps Wayne (and perhaps you) better understand how long heart surgery patients stay in the hospital.

Written by Adam Pick - Patient & Website Founder

Adam Pick is a heart valve patient and author of The Patient's Guide To Heart Valve Surgery. In 2006, Adam founded HeartValveSurgery.com to educate and empower patients. This award-winning website has helped over 10 million people fight heart valve disease. Adam has been featured by the American Heart Association and Medical News Today.

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