Clinical Wound care manager for WCC...what do you do?

[Codypatody, BSN, RN]

Can anyone out there please shed some light on this type of position? What kind of experience is required and/or helpful? What is an average day like? Salary?

Any information you can provide will be helpful!!!

[RN1989]

Depends on the type of facility. Is this a for-profit company that runs a free standing clinic or a clinic associated with a facility? Or does a hospital run the WCC?

[Codypatody, BSN, RN]

It is associated with a for profit hospital.

[RN1989]

My experience has been with for-profit.

The manager is salaried due to the need for O.T. The manager generally does wound care along with any staff, in addition to performing managerial duties - ordering supplies, chart audits, polcy review, employee training/eval, marketing to physicians, planning/attending any wound care CE lectures with vendor reps, attending parties/gatherings after hours for marketing, etc.

The pressure on the manager is tremendous in a for-profit facility. Particularly if an outside company has contracted with the hospital to provide the wound care services. Marketing is heavily pushed as well as questionable practices for certifying people for certain high dollar treatments even when they are not indicated.

Often there are bonus incentives for the manager for the monthly or quarterly dollar amount profit that is brought in. This is where the questionable practices come in because people will often do anything for money. This also causes a lot of turnover in the position if the manager is not keeping operating costs low enough and bringing in enough clients to keep the shareholders happy.

There are also issues with the docs because not all docs will lower their standards to suit the employer, thus the manager becomes the one that is ordered to tell the doctor what to do in order to increase profits - never mind that telling a doctor what treatments to order is not appropriate.

This may not be the case where you are, but has been my experience. As with all for-profits, be wary.

[SassyJessann]

Good morning! I am the clinical manager at a wound care center that is affiliated with a hospital but managed by a management company. I participate with the staff in clinic, do case management, as well as complete reports, ensure JCAHO readiness, and keep the center connected to the hospital. I have only been in wound care for 2 years, and I love it. It is a lot of work and I do work a lot of overtime to reduce the hourly nurses' overtime, so that stinks. I make $75K a year in the Dallas area. Still, the benefits of working Mon-Fri, weekends and holidays off is a big plus after having been in the hospital for 10 years. I have to say that wound care is big business and sometimes we do use expensive modalities. However, we also have a very high heal rate (96%) in 16 weeks. So, is it more expensive to heal somebody with high dollar modalities right out of the gate or use less expensive options and take longer to heal them, leading to more visits, etc.?

[Codypatody, BSN, RN]

Thanks for your response. Did you have experience being a manager prior to this position? If you did, do you think this is a definate necessity for the job or is it something you can learn. I do not have manager experience and the position I am looking into has 4 RNs to supervise. Can someone who has never been a mgr but has 3 yrs wound care exp. do this job? I have also never worked in a wound care center but I am familiar with how they are run. I work in sales/clinical consultant for a wound care company.