Cardiac Rehabilitation

Throughout the program, our team will teach you how to improve your cardiovascular health. You’ll also learn how improving your diet and reducing stress can improve your long-term prognosis.

When you’re ready to return to begin or return to an exercise program, you will participate in structured exercise sessions, tailored to your specific needs by an exercise physiologist and updated at frequent intervals. A registered nurse and an exercise physiologist will monitor your blood pressure, heart rate and heart rhythm before, during and after exercise. Our cardiac rehabilitation staff will also help you develop a home-exercise program to maintain your momentum.

We will work with you to obtain an order from your physician to participate in the program.  Some patients may need a stress test before admission.  We can determine that based on our current protocols. Our goal is to get you started in the program as soon as possible after your cardiac event with medical clearance from your physician. We will work with your physician to obtain any needed medical information pertinent to your enrollment in the cardiac rehab program.

Once we have received your physician order, we’ll schedule an evaluation appointment with a cardiac rehab nurse to review your medical history, risk factors, and goals. This initial 90-minute appointment will include 45 minutes of meeting with the nurse and 45 minutes of undergoing initial exercise training with our exercise physiologist while your heart is being monitored. After this initial evaluation appointment, we will set up subsequent appointments for you to attend your 12-week program. You will also have a 1:1 appointment set up with our Registered Dietitian. Participation in all cardiac rehabilitation components is strongly recommended for obtaining the best health outcomes.  Family/Support persons are welcome to attend any educational offerings throughout your program.

The Cardiac Rehabilitation program is a mandated insurance benefit in the state of MA.  What will vary among insurance carriers is the number of visits that will be provided as well as determine if any co-payments, coinsurance, or deductibles are applied to your visits with us.  We will work with you on what your insurance coverage will be for cardiac rehabilitation prior to enrolling in the program.  In addition, you should take the step to contact your insurance to ask specific plan benefit questions, and you should document who provided you with this information in case further questions need to be clarified.