ABSTRACT

Eligible patients motivated to implement significant lifestyle changes may benefit from Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation, a service reimbursed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and many private payers. Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation blends supervised exercise with enhanced emphasis on psychosocial and group support, daily education, and stress management techniques. Traditional, early outpatient cardiac rehabilitation typically employs two to three medically supervised, electrocardiographic telemetry-monitored exercise sessions per week at an outpatient medical facility, with program duration lasting 6 to 36 sessions based on individual insurance benefits and risk stratification. In response to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services requirements that programs seeking approval to provide Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation demonstrate significant improvements in selected cardiac risk factors, each program submitted peer-reviewed literature supporting the influence of their intensive lifestyle modification program on cardiovascular risk. Other investigations have evaluated the impact of intensive lifestyle modification programs on hospitalization rates, cardiovascular event and mortality risk, and cardiac symptoms.