Case Management Newsletters

This newsletter offers case studies, best practices, and how-to analysis to help case managers move patients through the care continuum efficiently and safely.

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Case Management Monthly

Issue 12, December 1, 2006 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Discharge planning: Strategies for leaving a lasting impression

  Leaving the hospital ranks among the most anticipated and stressful moments of a hospital...

• Creative solutions for managing uninsured patients

  One of case managers' most time-consuming jobs is negotiating with different insurance sources to...

Issue 11, November 1, 2006 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Creating a collaborative setting to help enhance throughput

  Throughput issues (e.g., ED diversions, inpatient units at or near capacity, and ORs behind...

• To free beds for new admissions, triage best candidates for early discharge

  One year ago, 577-bed Baptist Hospital of Miami took two steps in an effort to improve patient flow...

• Get ready for phase one of sweeping inpatient prospective payment system reform

  The August 18 publication of the 2007 IPPS from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS...

Issue 10, October 1, 2006 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Observation status: Determining the correct level of care

  Editor's note: Observation status is an often-confused term that can trip up hospitals and case...

• Infection protection: Case management and potentially avoidable delays

  Successful discharge planning hinges on the avoidance of delays. Delays wreak havoc on even the...

• ED Epiphany: Good things don't come to hospitals that make patients wait

  For years, it's been a cocktail party punchline-like long lines at the department of motor...

Issue 9, September 1, 2006 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• A wider view of the JCAHO's handoff communication goal

  Handoff communication goes be-yond the shift-to-shift, nurse-to-nurse report, according to clinical...

• A method to madness: Managing psychiatric emergencies in acute-care settings

  At 3 p.m. on a Friday, a patient walks into the ED and tells the triage nurse that he has overdosed...

Issue 8, August 1, 2006 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Case management and palliative care: A blend that works

  Why do we treat end-of-life care as a specialty when it affects everybody at some point in their...

• A grief observed: Why case management intervention matters to caregivers

  Case managers are relieved when a supportive significant other is willing to care for an ill loved...

Issue 7, July 1, 2006 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• The transfer DRG expansion: Strategies to tackle common DRGs

  At the beginning of the year, CMS expanded the postacute transfer payment policy-or transfer...

• A page out of a champion's playbook

  The ACMA and JCAHO recently named the case management/quality improvement department at SHH in...

Issue 6, June 1, 2006 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Deconstructing Condition Code 44: CMS clarifies complex policy

  Most case managers are becoming more familiar with the general rules of Condition Code 44 (e.g...

• Case managers and hospitalists: Business partners across the continuum of care

  Case managers and hospitalists shortchange themselves and their institutions if they only...

• Experimental admission and discharge teams improve throughput and satisfaction

  ED overcrowding, complex cases, prolonged LOS, nurses paralyzed by paperwork, hospital bottlenecks...

Issue 5, May 1, 2006 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Concurrent case management model earns high marks

  "How can physicians and case managers attempt to manage resources if they don't even know to what...

• BATON transfer aids hospital handoffs

  Complying with a new National Patient Safety Goal from the JCAHO may be as simple as passing the...

Issue 4, April 1, 2006 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Everything you wanted to know but were too busy to ask

  Discharge planning involves more than simply planning a discharge. As healthcare becomes more...

• No denying it: How one Massachusetts facility reduced its denial rates

  You’re fed up with the piles of denials and disappointed with their direct link to the bottom...

• MD hospital wins award for flow improvements

  Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville, MD, was suffocating. A backlog of patients clogged the...

Issue 3, March 1, 2006 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Medication reconciliation: Case managers play a supporting role

  When the JCAHO recommended medication reconciliation as a National Patient Safety Goal in 2005, it...

• Improve patient flow by using facts over feelings

  Problems with patient flow can come back to bite a hospital in many ways. If sick or injured...

• Shortcut to creating a discharge planning policy

  Discharge planning is a basic hospital function and is required by federal law, but a surprising...

Issue 2, February 1, 2006 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Documentation key to maximizing transfer DRG reimbursement

  When CMS dramatically expanded the postacute care transfer payment policy from 29 DRGs to 182, it...

• A Medicare Part D primer for case managers

  If enrolling in a new Medicare Part D drug plan was not one of your patients’ New...

Issue 1, January 1, 2006 - VIEW THE FULL ISSUE

• Moving beyond LOS to clinical resource management

  Case management has played a key role in managing access to services (e.g., venue appropriateness...

• Complex case: The many routes to admitting a hospice patient to the hospital

  Nancy, the medical case manager, receives a call from the billing department about a recent patient...

• The 2006 OIG Work Plan: Dialysis, observation, and Medicare’s Part D benefit

  The OIG’s message is clear: When Medicare Part D takes effect January 1, the feds will be...

Issue 1, August 23, 2006

• CHF Posting 8-23-06

  CHF Posting 8-23-06