[NurseFeelGood2005]

Hello everyone,
I have been doing home health for only about 4 mos now. I have been a visit nurse assigned to a case manager. The co I work for has a quick turn over for nurses and as of this mos we are losing 2 more nurses. Once of those vacancies is a case management position. I have been approached to take over this position. ( I was approached by the office staff actually, not ever the supervisor!) First of all, I'm not really sure what the responsibilities are of the CM, like I said, I'm fairly new to this field of nursing. As a visit nurse, I have been toss all around recently and covering all areas d/t the shortage we have. I never know what my schedule will be like and most days I dread looking at next days schedule. So my question is, what is the role of case manager?, is it worth giving up the visit nurse position to move into that role?, will their be a pay increase?, should there be a pay increase?, will/should productivity decrease with this job?, how much more paperwork is involved in this job?

I know these questions should be pointed toward my supervisor, but I figured I'd throw it out there and get all of your opinions on the position as well. Seems like someone from management should have approached me on this by now since the position will be vacant on the 4th of january!

I appreciate all your post in advance!

Chrissy

[caliotter3]

Aside from anything else, if no one from management had approached me about the position, I would not consider that a good sign. After all, you would be reporting directly to them and need a good working relationship with them.

As a case manager, you should be an internal employee rather than an external employee and thus should draw a salary (exempt) and/or get an appropriate pay raise.

Official case manager is not a job that I would personally be interested in at this time. You would be a problem fixer, for everybody that you have responsibility for. Do you really want to hear complaints all the time and spend you time putting out fires and acting as damage control? And the paperwork, would be your responsibility. A different amount, different paperwork (OASIS) and you would also be responsible to check over the paperwork submitted by the visit/shift nurses. If you like administrative tasks, well ok. But most people prefer to stick with patient care, shifts or visits, and the paperwork required for their one patient or for their visit group. As a case manager, in effect, you are responsible for everything dealing with however many cases are assigned to you.

On the plus side, if you are ready for a supervisory role and want to become an internal employee at your company, and feel that this is the time to do this, then go for it. But the job offer has to come from the manager. If you are interested, then you might want to approach the manager and express your desire to be considered for the position.

[RNKittyKat]

In my office, the case manager does visits and in addition, carries the burden and responsibility of coordination of all disciplines, tracking frequencies and turning in appropriate paperwork on a timely basis. I left case management to become a visit nurse. It meant less money but I'm glad I did. There just has to be a better way. If I can find a position for visit nurses that get paid salary, now that's something I'd jump on. To work as a visit nurse, I had to go per diem. Funny but the work seemed to dry up a bit when I got paid for productivity.

No, it is not a good sign that they can't keep case managers. Why not ask why they are vacating their positions? If you hear a common thread, I'd consider very carefully.

[Renee2050]

I just recently started as an intermittent field nurse for a local company. We just recently had a case conference meeting, and it said that I was the case manager for a lot of patients. I get paid per visit. I was told in my interview that I was getting paid for the visit. They didn't say anything about me being a case manager. They didn't tell me when I was hired that I would have to do all the work outside of the visit (they have hourly and salary people in the office that should be helping). My supervisor told me that most companies that have intermittent nurses that get paid by the visit are case managers. Not sure if this is true or not....?

[jnurse19]

I do case management, get paid hourly only. But it is really not that bad for us, I have about 50 patients, and our DON really helps us a lot. She is great, and that is what makes me stay in this company. I only do admits, mostly SupV., but we also have support RN's that helps with recers/ROC's and SupV if needed.