You don't necessarily have to be confined to hospitals and healthcare centers for a successful nursing career. Direct patient care is only one aspect of nursing. Explore your options in case management.
Taking Healthcare Management Case by Case
While many nurses find direct patient care fulfilling, others want more diversity and a chance of career advancement. Case management offers a variety of opportunities to nurses, as well as a change of pace.
Make a Case for Yourself
After five years working with direct patient care, Leslie Dawson folded up her white nursing uniform and starting handling healthcare budgets. Now Dawson is a case manager for a private medical case management company that supervises home healthcare agencies employing nurses. According to KForce.com, Dawson made the move because, "I really wanted a change of pace. I was getting a little tired of direct patient care. It really came down to advancement. I wanted status, better hours, increased salary, and respect."
As a healthcare manager like Dawson, you may work for private companies that are under contract with the state to review Medicaid cases in which patients receive home care. What can you expect on the job?
• Caseloads can average from about 120 to 170 patients
• You may visit patients with chronic disabilities a few times a year to recommend whether the level of healthcare or service
needs to be altered.
• You will interact with a variety of people including nurses, doctors, home care agency directors, state health
administrators, and social workers.
• You will use your financial planning skills to help write budgets for home care agencies. You may find yourself
budgeting hundreds of thousands of dollars per month.
• In management, your time is more flexible, you can use your own judgment, and you can be more innovative with your solutions.
How Do You Become a Healthcare Manager?
With a licensed registered nursing degree, you can become a case manager. After completing your nursing degree program, you can take online healthcare management degree courses like marketing, economics, cost analysis, or business management.
Case management can be an extremely rewarding and exciting profession. In 2004, the average annual salary of healthcare managers was nearly $70,000. Take your nursing career to a new level, and look into becoming a case manager.
Sources
Bureau of Labor Statistics
KForce Professional Staffing: Alternative Careers for Nurses: Case Management