Work Comp case management

[dcarp]

Hi all, just logged in for the first time and have some questions concerning case management for occupational medicine/work comp. I manage a clinic in which we have two case managers who work at very different levels. Each carries a case load of patients and each has clinic responsibilities. We are trying to ascertain the average case load for case managers who work in a clinical setting and also provide some hands on care.

Do any of you have good data or any personal experiences that might help us?

thanks

[Sharon]

There are no standards for the combined case manager and direct care OHN regarding number of cases. I am assuming from your message that both nurses work at the same clinic with the same duties providing care to the same population. If any of the direct care factors are varied there will be a very large case range from say 2 active cases to 50 cases. Case ranges are very dependent on whether they are new or old cases as well as how many cases are recovering timely.

For our workers compensation case managers vendors, who only do case management we look for not more than 120 cases per nurse if they are handling a variety of cases. Larger companies are no longer hiring vendors who split their nursing staff between direct care and case management. I would rather higher a full time case manager even with only 50% utilization than share a dual position. My experience has been that case management will always lose out to medical emergencies on site even if there is a more serious at home emergency in which a patient will need to be guide through the crises. I hope you get more responses then just mine.

[wrightgd]

Hi dcarp,

I agree with Sharon. It's hard to put a number on what a case load should be, because just like any patient load, acuity has to (or at least should be) factored in. My company splits these into two distinct jobs... Either you are a case manager, or you are a clinic nurse. It's difficult to juggle the two aspects, and do a good job on both of them.

George