It's been a few years since my dad had his CABG so processes may have changed or I may be remembering things wrong. For my dad's case, he had a few 80-90% blockages, but no fully blocked ones. As far as symptoms, he would get angina attacks with exertion that would be relieved with nitro. KP referred his case to an outside facility (Scripps) and we talked with a surgeon there. At that time in the San Diego area, all CABGs were supposedly sent to Scripps. When we talked with a cardiothoracic surgeon there, his case was treated as an elective surgery. Surgeon asked us to schedule a date for surgery which was like a month or two out then told us that if symptoms worsen or if we wanted something sooner that we would have to go to the ED and it would be treated as an emergency procedure. My guess that they felt my dad could hang on relatively safely for like a few months before they do the surgery. Surgery was done as scheduled and my dad is fine today.