An RN Case Manager is an integral piece of the healthcare puzzle when it comes to continuing care for complex patients. For example, in some cases a hospitalized patient could be moved between floors, between departments of specialty, from surgery to intensive care and then a step-down floor. That same patient may transition to another facility or home where further care is needed.
A Case Manager’s number one priority is management of a patient’s spectrum of care: billing, medical care, doctors and specialists, labs, x-ray, pharmacy, therapy, follow-up care, and ensuring a continuum that makes fiduciary sense as well as conforms to patient care. Can you see how an experienced RN could be well-suited to this advanced practice career?
Case Management Nursing is one of the few advanced degree specializations that prepares experienced RNs to function relatively independently of a nursing staff or physician direction. Besides their import to patients’ continued care, CM RNs are critical to the Healthcare Industry in general: they help design the most affordable avenue of care—they ultimately work to plug cash drains in the industry.
Masters of Nursing programs are hotbeds for the Case Management concentration.
Thanks to the nursing shortage degree programs are now offered in a range of mix-and-match specialties AND delivery formats. Case Management candidates may opt for campus-based CM programs, distance-based, or blended programs. Working RNs have a higher chance of advancing their degrees if they have availability to online degree studies. Those committed and motivated can may study at home on their own time and according to their own schedules.
Strip away core MSN coursework and the targeted CM curriculum includes:
Most CM students will complete a required clinical or internship in the field.
The American Case Management Association provides career support, educational opportunities, networking, conferences, current news and issues facing the CM professional across a number of healthcare CM fields.