How Case Managers in Health Plans Can Carve a Path for the Future
Headlines are awash with news of uncertainty and forecasts of doom or change for many sectors of business and populations of people. Healthcare organizations, and organizations like health plans that support them in the healthcare marketplace, are taking postures of “wait and see” because of the uncertainty.
Despite the external environment’s uncertainty, managers and leaders of care management staff still have a job to do every day: to lead their teams get work done. So how does a manager or leader prepare for a future that is uncertain, and give their team the tools to be ready as well?
Step 1: Critical Thinking Skills
Critical thinking skills are tools that care managers can cultivate in themselves, and pass along to their staff. What are critical thinking skills?
Want to help people? From nurses to social workers, most, if not all, in the health care industry chose their career because they want to help others. But sometimes wanting to help a client leads to trying to “fix” a client, and it’s impossible to “fix” others.
It’s time to add to your case management team. Are you feeling overwhelmed? From the countless job boards to the numerous emails you will likely receive, the hiring process often becomes a time-consuming second job. But finding the right care coordinator or care manager for your company is important. After all, you want the right person for the job — but you also do not want to waste your time and energy.
Just as the number of people enrolled in health plans continues to grow, so too, does the average caseload for case managers. Due to a combination of legislative action, an aging population and an increasing number of chronically and seriously ill individuals, health plan enrollment has gone up, resulting in greater caseloads for care managers.
Whether your title is case manager, care manager or care coordinator, know that you are on the frontline in improving quality and patient experience.
Are You a Stressed out Case Manager? Fact is, a lot of our health problems stem from stress — and we are in the health field! Like many industries, the highly competitive and ever-changing field of health care can be stressful.
Although selecting the perfect candidate is an important step, it is not the last step of the recruitment process. Once your new case manager, care manager, or care coordinator has accepted your offer, the next step is to successfully integrate him or her into your organization. This starts with the onboarding process.
Talented care managers are in limited supply, but very much in demand because the number of chronically and seriously ill individuals is growing. Americans are living longer, and the workforce is aging, resulting in a critical need for highly skilled care managers.
Everyone who works in healthcare, whether it’s the janitor or the physician, the nurse or the social worker, the dietary aid or the occupational therapist, is there to help people. Yet everyone who works in healthcare is aware that there are major problems in the system. People who need care are not getting it, even with the Affordable Care Act.
Managed care is today’s prevalent model for managing the process for delivering health care and managing its costs. Payers and insurers no longer simply write checks to pay for health care services ordered by a physician; they become involved in decisions about how much care a patient receives, what kind and by which providers.