Do I have enough experience to even try?

[LockportRN]

Ok, here are my experiences as a nurse;

Tele, LTC, UR, Medicare Coordinator, Wellsprings Coordinator, Treatment Nurse, Skilled Nursing, ADON and DON of various skilled nursing facilites and Community Nurse for Adult DD Residents.

I love, love, love to see patients get better and go home and loved working with other disciplines to make sure that once they got there that they didn't have to return (lol) so making sure that education was given, follow-up services were in place and even ensuring that homes were evaluated and families trained in giving care once the patient was home were all a part of making this happen. And something that I found very I invested myself in doing.

Is this enough varied experiences to qualify me to try and break into Case Management? If so, where would be a good place to start? Would it help if I enrolled in a Certification class (for the knowledge, as I understand that I would need 2 years experience before I could test for the Certificate).

I am having visual difficulties that prevent me from bedside nursing and am not interested in taking on another management position. I was considering HIT to be able to use the skills that I have learned and practiced these many years, but then it was suggested to me to consider case management. So what do you think?

[SummerGarden, BSN, MSN, RN]

Working as a bedside nurse provides you the clinical work experience needed to be a CM. However, your ability to perform the rest of the job will depend on your work environment.

Within the acute care setting much of Case Management can be similar to bedside nursing in that you are actively participating in providing resources to patients and making arrangements/coordinating care upon discharge. This means you will actively be involved with the Primary Nursing staff as well as the Physicians so your abilities to perform the job safely is the same as that of a bedside nurse. On the other hand, if you work for an insurance company off-site (I know CMs that work on-site for insurance companies) then you will spend more time speaking to patients over the phone or reviewing charts and thus may be able to perform the job safely.

How do you get started? Try speaking to the department heads of your current employer regarding becoming a new CM. You can receive the training needed to do the job as well as gain the experience you need to become more marketable. If your current employer is not an option, then call an employment agency and speak to a recruiter who may have contacts with organizations looking for new CMs. Good Luck.