For organization of health care, it is important to know the requirement for its individual types, including the number of hospitalizations and the use of expensive technologies. Heart failure (HF) syndrome in patients with cardiovascular diseases often determines their severity and prognosis. However, being a complication of underlying disease, HF is not included into statistical reports and medical bills in the compulsory health insurance system. This article focuses on issues in evaluating HF prevalence and mortality in different countries and provides the authors' consensus on approaches to HF coding in the informational systems, which record morbidity and mortality.