Your cardiologist and/or EP have to advise you based on evidence-based protocols approved by their colleges. And their insurers, too. The evidence is that your CHA2DS2-VASc score must be at least at 1.5, as one or both of them see it, or you're even higher. A score of 2 is the current demarcation point above which they insist that you take the DOAC daily. Some will agree to a half-dose. Some, like the vaunted Dr. Andre Natale at Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Institute in Austin, tells his patients to go off a DOAC if they've had an LAA closure (Left Atrial Appendage) which is where most of the risk lies. He only does this after six months have passed from the insertion of the Watchman device into the LAA, and a TEE shows conclusively that it is both sealed and not leaking. If it seems to be leaking, he tells you sorry, you'll have to keep taking Apixaban or Xarelto.