Case Management Travel Assignments: Enjoy Some R&R While Reducing Readmissions
By Debra Wood, RN, contributor
Imagine an opportunity to see the country, while working as a nurse case manager to improve patient outcomes and appropriate use of resources. All that and more is possible with case management travel assignments.
Case Management Basics
Travel case managers work in hospitals, rehabilitation centers and nursing homes. In these settings, the nurses focus on transitioning patients to other settings and developing long-term care plans, designed to keep the patient healthy and out of the hospital. They assist patients in planning for the healthcare services they will need after discharge to avoid an unnecessary hospital readmission. That involves assessing the situation, educating patients about their options, developing a plan of care and coordinating execution of that plan.
Nurses working on case management travel assignments help patients leave the hospital with needed support and ensure they go to an appropriate setting, while keeping the patient and his or her desires first. Case managers should be culturally appropriate.
The case manager may arrange for home health care and durable medical equipment or transfer to a skilled nursing or rehabilitation facility. They will collaborate with the patient and family. Case management nurses may work with pediatric through geriatric patients.
As a case manager, nurses must coordinate with providers, physicians, social workers, caregivers and insurers. That means travel case managers must have good written and oral communication skills. Case managers often have to advocate for their patients and come up with innovative solutions.
Nurse case managers also practice in physician offices, clinics and patient-centered medical homes, as the healthcare system moves to a more value-based reimbursement system. They may identify and help patients overcome barriers to care and develop solutions to social determinants of health, such as transportation, that adversely affect patients’ well-being.
Additionally, case managers work for insurance companies, helping to manage difficult or complex cases. Those case managers stay in frequent contact with hospital case managers to help ensure the appropriate transition of care.
Many aspects of a case management travel assignment are portable or transferable from one location to another. For example, guidelines about medical necessity are universal across the country. Case managers depend on MCG guidelines and InterQual products to determine the appropriate level of care and medical utilization.
Additionally, Medicare and its requirements remain the same across the country. And case managers must be familiar with different types of insurances, such as HMOs and PPOs, and know what to ask to arrange for the services their patients need. Travelers must determine early on in their assignment about community resources.
Certification is a way to demonstrate expertise in case management, and several organizations offer certification, including the Commission for Case Manager Certification and the American Case Management Association. The American Nurses Credentialing Center offers certification specifically for nurses case managers.
Travel Nursing Benefits
Traveling allows nurse case managers to enjoy spending time in different parts of the country, seeing the sights, soaking up the culture, and having some rest and relaxation. Imagine lying on a Southwest Florida beach or frequenting Broadway plays in the Big Apple or watching a rodeo in Houston. Nurse case management travel assignments are available in all of these places and hundreds more.
Other nurses on a case management travel assignment enjoy crisscrossing the country. Living in a community, even for a short period, gives the nurses a view of that locale much different than when a tourist staying for a few days or a week.
Being a traveling nurse case manager also offers the chance to work in different settings or facilities and to see how a variety of organizations operate before perhaps settling into a permanent position.
Our partner, American Mobile, estimates travel nurse case managers can earn up to $33,300 per 13-week assignment. Salary depends on location, experience, seasonal fluctuations and demand for nurse case managers in a certain area. Additionally, nurses with certification can earn more.
Travelers with our partner also receive full medical and dental benefits, an employer-matched retirement account, disability coverage, continuing education courses, free housing or a housing reimbursement, and money for meals and incidentals.
Facilities typically require nurses to have one to two years experience in medical-surgical nursing or case management. Some may prefer case managers with certification.
Nurses enjoy working case management travel assignments. They skip the internal politics often associated with a permanent position and get to see the country in all of its glory, as they move about the nation.