[sassy3]

Without putting you to sleep...can you give me an idea for TOTAL patient load per month or year for the following situation:

-disease specific case manager
-high complexity/acuity (cancer patients on active therapy or hospice)
-need to provide monthly reports including patient status, medical update, cost savings, education,
-every patient requires monthly reports
-we are in constant communication with pt -educating, sx management
-you have to get claims or other UR/payment/charge info from TPA (no access to system)

50 active patients with this above (abridged version of what we do)..seems like more than enough (in fact it is a difficult load at 50)...what are your thoughts?

[tgb1966]

Wow, 50 is a lot. I carry between 40 and 45, although during our busiest times I have had as many as 52. The only upside is that some of mine were quarterly reports. There is a great article in Lippincotts Case management journal about quantifying case management workloads. It is the Nov/Dec 2006 issue. The title is "Quantifying CAse Management Workloads: Development of the PACE Tool," by Amy Balstad and Pam Springer. I hope that this helps! You can find it on www.nursingcenter.com/library/journalarticleprint.asp?Article_ID=680743

Good Luck!

Tamara

Originally Posted by sassy3

Without putting you to sleep...can you give me an idea for TOTAL patient load per month or year for the following situation:

-disease specific case manager
-high complexity/acuity (cancer patients on active therapy or hospice)
-need to provide monthly reports including patient status, medical update, cost savings, education,
-every patient requires monthly reports
-we are in constant communication with pt -educating, sx management
-you have to get claims or other UR/payment/charge info from TPA (no access to system)

50 active patients with this above (abridged version of what we do)..seems like more than enough (in fact it is a difficult load at 50)...what are your thoughts?

[sassy3]

Thank you Tamara for your reply. I thought 50 patients plus about 10 patients that are on quarterly reports was a big load. I was just curious if that was high, low or average. I work with seasoned CM/DM and some of us are new to this area and we all feel it's high. Just nice to hear from someone else. THanks for taking the time to respond....i will def. check out the article!

[Renaylor]

I work at a Long Term Care facility were there are approximately 800 residents and about 125-150 have managed care policies, the rest are Medicare/Medicaid. Of those 125-150 I actively follow 30-40/wk which vary from month to month-sometimes more,sometimes less(and about 10-15 residents are monthly(Guildnet) spread out over different days during the month.

[wincha]

I work disease management and we are supposed to have 350 in our caseload however many of these I have never contacted and it will be quite awhile before I will be able to. I think I talk to around 50 a week max and I make around 3-5 calls per person every 2-4 weeks.

[Mijourney]

I'm a case manager doing disease management and we have anywhere from 30-50 patients. I wonder if some of us who are doing disease management are disease managers that don't have dedicated cases? How does that work as far as disease management vs. case management?

[wincha]

I talk to my members usually 3-5 times and close the case however if they have any issues they can call me back and I will open the case. Some of us have case management certification and do some case management but our focus is disease management.

[wincha]

Originally Posted by sassy3

Without putting you to sleep...can you give me an idea for TOTAL patient load per month or year for the following situation:

-disease specific case manager-YES I DO SPECIFIC DISEASE MANAGEMENT
-high complexity/acuity (cancer patients on active therapy or hospice)-NO I REFER THEM TO OTHER CASE MANAGERS WHO SPECIALIZE IN THESE AREAS HOWEVER I WILL FOLLOW THEM AFTER DISCHARGE IF THEY ARE ONE OF MY CASES
-need to provide monthly reports including patient status, medical update, cost savings, education, -I PROVIDE REPORTS EVERY TIME I TALK TO SOMEONE WHICH INCLUDE COST SAVINGS AND EDUCATION, MORE OF A SPREADSHEET TO FILL IN
-every patient requires monthly reports- NO ONLY A SPREADSHEET AFTER I TALK TO SOMEONE
-we are in constant communication with pt -educating, sx management- 3-5 CALLS THEN CASE IS CLOSED, CAN BE REOPENED
-you have to get claims or other UR/payment/charge info from TPA (no access to system)-I DON'T HANDLE CLAIMS OR CHARGES-I REFER THEM FOR THIS

50 active patients with this above (abridged version of what we do)..seems like more than enough (in fact it is a difficult load at 50)...what are your thoughts?

I do specific case management and am educating and providing cost savings. How many disease managers focus on metrics and ROI?

[kTIE]

As a hospital base case manager, I have had anywhere from 14-28 patients case load.

[ksilty]

It has been my experience that 50 is the magic number, although many case managers carry more. I always had a difficult time closing cases. Once you develop a rapport with patients, many tend to cling, long after their acute needs have been met. Do you have a good data tool? That can mean the difference between calm and frenzy when reporting. I have a good program that, after a little tweaking to make it serve my needs, pretty much writes my reports for me.