How many patients to Case Manage???

Isabelle49 · Sep 8, 2011

At one company I worked at, I was a Case Manager and did not do visits. We had approximately 450 patients and 3 case managers, the patients were broken down by alphabet and each manager had 1/3 of the alphabet. We did everything except Oasis review and coding. We did labs, handled calls from families, patients, docs, field nurses, pt, aides, to. It is a very busy job.

Another company I worked for had Case managers in the field, they were full time and had to see 32 patients per week. They were just field nurses with the title of Case Manger, lol.

bellafay · Sep 9, 2011

Wow! To be responsible for 150 patients would be overwhelming- even if you weren't doing visits! So, if a case manager should be doing approximately 32 visits in a week- how many should they case manage?

KateRN1 · Sep 10, 2011

How long is a piece of string?

Much of it depends on what kinds of patients you're seeing, the acuity, the presence or absence of a caregiver, the weather, the paperwork, etc.

Generally, at our agency, RNs case manage from the field with a max of 40 patients to case manage unless they are very experienced or have many therapy-only cases. Visit unit requirement is 30 per week with differentials for different kinds of visits.

We have clinical managers who are the middle managers responsible for a team of patients along with their clinicians--RN, LPN, PT, OT, ST, HHA. The clinical manager reviews OASIS and documentation, processes charts, fields calls from field staff and physicians, and much much more. They are not the case managers, that is a title that is reserved for the RN who is supposed to be keeping track of all of the patient's needs and coordinating care. The clinical manager is fiscally responsible, the case manager is physically responsible. Each clinical manager has 120 +/- patients to keep track of.