Forexample, a person with heart disease is burdened by huge expenses, including diagnostictests, surgery, hospital and doctors’ visits, physical therapy, and costly drugs. Aconservative estimate of these costs for just one person is $121,200 over 20 years.heaverage cost of a cardiac catheterization in 1992 was $10,880. • An estimated 598,000 coronary artery bypasses were performed on 367,000 patientsin 1996. • From 1979 to 1996, the number of bypass procedures increased 424.6 percent. • The average cost of coronary artery bypass surgery in 1995 was $44,820.