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Finding the appropriate level of care for extended LOS patients

Case Management Weekly, January 8, 2008

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Case managers have to continually learn, maintain, and update a large body of knowledge and skill sets so that they can advocate, facilitate, and coordinate care for patients across the healthcare continuum. Yet the traditional healthcare environment constantly changes and presents different options for levels of care and reimbursement of care. Case managers need to keep their toolbox of knowledge up to date and learn about new opportunities and avenues. Yet endeavoring to create and sustain relationships with all providers can be daunting.

One of the key times for case managers to advocate for the best interests of their patients is when patients' cases are extremely complicated and they have multiple acute illnesses or injuries necessitating an extended acute LOS.

Examples of such patients include those with multisystem failures. These are ideal candidates for a type of care that is increasing in prominence across the country but that is still often overlooked by many care providers. Long-term acute care (LTAC) hospitals provide an avenue for patients who require ongoing complex medical care beyond that provided by skilled and subacute nursing facilities and whose conditions require extended stays beyond the typical LOS expected at short-term acute care (STAC) facilities.

Source: You can read the entire article in the January issue of Case Management Monthly.

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