Cardiovascular Medicine

Mayo Clinic offers a Cardiac Rehabilitation Program to help people who have a history or risk of heart and blood vessel disease. This group of conditions also is referred to as cardiovascular disease. The program staff works with you to set goals toward improving your health and reducing your risk of future heart disease and medical complications.

The Cardiac Rehabilitation Program at Mayo Clinic provides supervised exercise directed by doctors in a clinical setting. It also offers patient education and support for people with certain heart conditions.

In the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program at Mayo Clinic, your care team may include:

• Heart doctors (cardiologists).
• Clinical exercise physiologists.
• Registered nurses.
• Exercise physiologists.
• Registered dietitians.
• Psychologists and licensed counselors.
• An executive chef.
• Pulmonologists in the Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Program at Mayo Clinic in Florida.
• Respiratory therapists in the Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Program at Mayo Clinic in Florida.
• Physical therapists.

The staff in the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program helps you focus on improving and promoting your health and healthy lifestyle changes. Your goals might include:

• Becoming more active.
• Improving your nutrition.
• Maintaining a healthy weight.
• Taking prescribed preventive medicines.
• Avoiding tobacco use or exposure.
• Improving your sleep habits and mental health.
• Reducing your risk of cardiovascular events.

These strategies are well known. But putting them into practice can be hard. To help you, your care team creates with you a personalized cardiac rehabilitation plan. The plan might include:

• A highly supervised exercise program.
• Patient education and wellness programs, such as cooking demonstrations and written resources.
• Nutrition counseling.
• Smoking cessation counseling.
• Stress management.
• Ideas for risk-factor management, with regular updates with prevention specialists.
• Physical and occupational therapy.
• Psychological counseling and counseling about the medicines you take to treat a disease or condition. This is also called pharmacological counseling.
• Referrals to other medical areas.

People may seek treatment in this program if they have conditions or treatments such as:

• Chest pain (angina).
• Coronary angioplasty and stents.
• Coronary bypass surgery.
• Heart attack.
• Heart failure.
• Heart transplant.
• Heart valve surgery.
• Peripheral artery disease.

The program also serves people who are at risk of developing cardiovascular disease. They may have conditions such as:

• Cancer.
• Conditions related to the effects of cancer treatment.
• Diabetes.
• High blood pressure (hypertension).
• High cholesterol.
• Metabolic syndrome.

The Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Program at Mayo Clinic in Arizona and in Florida helps people with or at risk of heart or lung diseases, which also are called pulmonary conditions. The conditions treated include:

• Asthma.
• Bronchiectasis.
• Chronic bronchitis.
• Cystic fibrosis.
• Emphysema.
• Interstitial lung disease.
• Lung transplant.
• Occupational or environmental lung disease.
• Respiratory failure.
• Sarcoidosis.

The Cardiac Rehabilitation Program at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, is a part of the Cardiovascular Health Clinic. This specialty clinic is focused on the needs of people with a history or risk of heart and blood vessel disease.

Comprehensive program

The Cardiac Rehabilitation Program at Mayo Clinic offers several phases:

• Phase 1: Hospitalization. Evaluation, education and rehabilitation efforts begin while you're still in the hospital following a cardiac event.
• Phase 2: Early outpatient. Soon after leaving the hospital, you'll begin attending classes and exercising regularly. Exercise physiologists, registered nurses, doctors and others closely monitor you. Most major insurance plans cover this phase.
• Phase 3: Extended outpatient. This is a self-pay supervised, nonmonitored exercise service. It’s designed for maintenance and ongoing progress of your heart health. Your vital signs are checked routinely. While it’s common for people in this phase to have graduated from phase 2, it’s not required. People may take part in this extended outpatient service due to other cardiovascular risk factors. This program is not offered at each site. Please contact your local facility to see if it’s available.

If you're being treated at Mayo Clinic for a short time, you can still participate in the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program. For example, if you have had a heart transplant at Mayo Clinic, you may be in the program for as long as you receive care at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, Florida or Minnesota following your time in the hospital.

Follow-up appointments are available when you return for checkups. This service is for people being treated at Mayo Clinic.

Appointments

To participate in the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program, you'll need to be referred by your doctor. Not all services may be available at all locations.

Nationally recognized expertise

Mayo Clinic is top-ranked in more specialties than any other hospital and has been recognized as an Honor Roll member according to the U.S. News & World Report's 2024-2025 "Best Hospitals" rankings.

Mayo Clinic campuses are nationally recognized for expertise in cardiology and cardiovascular surgery:

• Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Mayo Clinic in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona, and Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, are ranked among the Best Hospitals for heart and heart surgery by U.S. News & World Report.
• Mayo Clinic Children's Center in Rochester is ranked the No. 1 hospital in Minnesota, and the five-state region of Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin, according to U.S. News & World Report's 2024–2025 "Best Children's Hospitals" rankings.