Heart failure is a major chronic illness frequently found in the elderly. To maintain quality of life, the patients need to effectively self-manage. This two group pretest-posttest experimental research aimed to investigate the effect of self-management enhancement on quality of life and rehospitalization rate among the elderly with heart failure attending the outpatient department at Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital during May-August, 2014. The sample included 44 elderly participants randomly selected from those who met the inclusion criteria. The participants were randomly assigned equally into experimental and control groups. The experimental group received 6-weeks of self-management enhancement with 2.5 hours of weekly activities. The control group received usual nursing care. Data were collected a using Personal Data Recording Form, Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire, and Rehospitalization Recording Form. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test and Z-test. The result of this study revealed that, after receiving the self-management enhancement plan the quality of life of the elderly with heart failure was significantly higher than those receiving usual nursing care. The elderly receiving the self-management enhancement plan had better quality of life than those receiving usual nursing care (p < .001), while the rehospitalization rate tended to be decreasing but not with statistical significance (p > .001). The results from this study indicate that self-management enhancement helps increase quality of life and tends to decrease rehospitalization rate in the elderly with heart failure. Therefore, nurses can administer the self-management enhancement plan in this elderly group to help them effectively self-manage, prevent complications, and attain better quality of life.