What Is The Case Management Offered By Kaiser Permanente

The hospital that I worked for while working as a case manager was not in network with Kaiser Permanente. It was also the time when the hospital started to hire hospitalists to manage patient care while they are a patient in the hospital. It actually worked out because it filled in the gap in patient care. The hospitalists were acting as the patient's primary care provider. Kaiser as with many other insurance have a case manager designated to ensure that the patient is meeting criteria not only for an inpatient hospital stay but for the level of care they are receiving as well such as ICU, Stepdown, or Med-Surg. I would have to give them an updated clinical information daily or every 3 days depending on the severity of illness. As a case manager, I was responsible for discharge planning and I preferred to transfer the patients to

Moore and colleagues (2009) defines Case Management as an approach to practice that ensures vulnerable people with multiple, complex and sometimes lifelong needs are provided with a mix of personal, health and welfare supports and services, which enable them to establish and sustain their optimal independent personal and social functioning.

Case management is a continuous balancing act of judgment calls, making ethical choices, getting along with coworkers, and following legal protocol. It is the duty of the case manager to know how to develop a relationship with both clients and coworkers while still maintain their professionalism. The healthcare professional must always leave their personal opinions at home and provide the same quality of care to all their clients regardless if they have different views, religion, sexual orientations, or cultures. The case manager needs to ensure that the client’s concerns will be put first no matter what, and should also clarify that the as the professional he or she will do all that is necessary to provide the best quality of care to their client.

Rothman, J., & Sager, J. (1998). Case Management: Integrating Individual and Community Practice (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

How does case management achieve efficiencies in the delivery of health care? How does case management differ from disease management?

Reinvest current net income into interest accounts for future variable health care costs for years to come

Case Managers have a challenging job, often dealing with patients, community agencies and facilitating their hospital discharge to the next level of care. They collaborate and communicate with the entire healthcare team and mostly with the patient during the hospitalization process. They act as support for all stakeholders to achieve positive patient outcomes. In this paper, I will be interviewing Ian Mopas, who is a Patient Care Coordinator at Kaiser Permanente in Redwood City about his education, work training, goals, and objectives as a Care Coordinator, and his responsibilities in his organization.

According to an article published in Case Management Advisor (2008), education assists case managers with being as knowledgeable as possible to identify and coordinate all the resources that their patients need and continued education is an ethical responsibility of a case manager. The article also suggests that advocacy is an ethical responsibility of a case manager. When advocacy is forgotten ethical issues occur. Fraser and Strang (2004) explain that case managers must be given the tools to allow them to function in their role with confidence and competence to act as strong advocates for their patients. Support for decision making is also a key component of case management. Coffman (2001) offers key points from The Code of Professional Conduct for Case Managers advising that case managers are guided by the principle of autonom. Case mangers achieve autonomy through advocacy. If case managers are expected to function with complete autonomy, then case managers require the assusrance that their leader ship will support them when difficult decisions have to be made, (Fraser and Strang, 2004). The concept of employer employees explains that by involving employees in developing the mission and values of the company, this allows employees feel empowered (Porter-O’Grady & Malloch, 2007). By allowing the case manager to be part of the development of the

In 1983, the Medicare prospective payment program was implemented which allowed hospitals to be reimbursed a set payment based on the patient’s diagnosis, or Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG), regardless of what treatment was provided or how long the patient was hospitalized (Jacob & Cherry, 2007). To keep the costs below the diagnosis related payment, hospitals had to manage efficiently the treatment provided to a client and reduce the client’s length of stay (Jacob & Cherry, 2007). Case management, or internal case management “within the walls” of the health care facilities was created to streamline costs while maintaining quality care (Jacob & Cherry, 2007).

The case management process consists of five parts: assessment, treatment planning, linking, advocacy, and monitoring. It is not a linear process and does not follow the order it is written up. There may be some back and forth and returning to certain points.

What I understand of case management is that it helps Social Workers in helping their clients, meaning social workers take actions to manage the various aspects of cases they are working on. Case management is also a shared process of assessment, planning, facilitation and advocacy for decisions and services to meet an individual’s need through communication and available resources. Case management examines the person’s physical, emotional, environmental state, and promotes quality and cost-effective outcomes. In addition, in Case management the worker helps to empower the clients to become self-sufficient. Moreover, Case management is structure into six principles

Case managers also provide support and information to patients and their families. Next, is utilization review. `Its main objective is to review each case and determine the most appropriate level of services, the most appropriate settings in which the services be delivered, the most cost efficient methods for care delivery and the need for planning of subsequent care. Other methods used for utilization and control are choice restriction and practice profiling' (Douglas, 2003, p.328).

According to IC & RC, Case Management is defined as, “activities intended to bring services, agencies, resources, or people together within a planned framework of action toward the achievement of established goals. It may involve liaison activities and collateral contacts” (Herdman, John W., 6th Ed.). Case management is a concerted effort of various professionals in the human social services network that assess’, plans, implements, coordinates, monitors and evaluates options required to meet the client’s health and human service needs. It is characterized by advocacy, communication, resource management and promotes quality cost-effective intervention outcomes. The Case Management Process centers on the client and the client’s support system. It is holistic in its approach to the management of the client’s individual and specific situation and that of the client’s support system. It is adaptive both to the case manager’s practice setting and to the healthcare setting in which the client receives services. Case management is not a profession unto itself however; it is a cross-disciplinary and interdependent specialty practice within the health and human services profession. Everyone directly or indirectly involved in healthcare benefits when healthcare professionals and

In recent years, health care has been a huge topic in public debates, legislations, and even in deciding who will become the next president. There have been many acts, legislations, and debates on what the country has to do in regards to health care. According to University of Phoenix Read Me First HCS/235 (n.d.), “How health care is financed influences access to health care, how health care is delivered, the quality of health care provided, and its cost”.

The case manager needs to prepare the customer for withdrawal and ensure that he or she can maneuver through the health care services independently or with established, helping resources.