Case Load ManagementCase Load ManagementCase Load ManagementCase Load Management

Casework Management

Casework is immersed in activities involving 1. moving clients from intake to closure, 2. performing proper case-by-case

documentation,3. acquiring necessary evaluations and

examinations for justification purposes and satisfying established guidelines,

4. execution of masterlist activities and case findings,

5. individualized medical management programs, and

6. concern for case-by-case cost-containment practices.

Casework vs. Caseload

In contrast, caseload management is considered to be performance encompassing, totally involving of practitioners attention, and integrating the coordination and control of many activities, one of which is case management.

Caseload Management

How to work with more than one case at a time

How to select which case to work withHow to move from one case to anotherHow to establish a system to insure

movement of all casesHow to meet objectives one has

established

Other Distinct Characteristics

1. Establishing a calendar of activities for a reasonably structured day or week for the most effective use of the practitioner’s time by filling the day with high-priority tasks,

2. Orchestrating a group of other professionals to help patients through this coordinated group effort, and

3. Initiating actions through a consistent decision-making style that keeps activities moving toward targeted goals.

Other Distinct Characteristics

Control is much broader and more encompassing in caseload management functions than casework activities

Casework goals and objectives are typically microcosmic in scope, whereas caseload management goals and objectives are more macrocosmic.

Implied also is the fact that practitioners must effectively invoke salient counseling and managerial skills to be in control of a caseload management process.

Definition of Caseload Management

“A systematic process of organizing, planning, coordinating, directing, and controlling for effective and efficient medical and managerial decision-making, to enhance proactive practice”.

Systematic Process

Caseload Manager must operate from a model or system in order to achieve consistency.

Caseload management has beginning and ending phases that have separate requirements and considerations, and must be hierarchically and systematically arranged.

The idea of a flow or pipeline between beginning and ending is paramount.

The caseload management process consists of stages or a series of activities that must be sequenced properly in a logical, rational manner.

Interpersonal relationships throughout the process should be formalized

Merging Counseling and Managerial Concepts and Skills

In the field of family practice, a professional must perform balanced, dual roles involving both typical counselor functions and managerial duties.

Dualism must give way to interrelatedness with equal commitments for both roles in order for the process to be systematic

Efficient and Effective Decision Making

Management of financial resources to achieve the greatest benefit from constrained budgets in the public sector, and from cost-restrictive insurance-applied practice programs in the private sector.

The efficiency-effectiveness dilemma develops over the decision of which to sacrifice when discussing patients concerns (effectiveness), and monetary, agency accounting-reporting demands (efficiency).

This has been termed the “serving two masters” dilemma.

The obvious, but very difficult to achieve, compromise is a balance between the two dimensions.

Functional Control of Self, Patient & Setting

Control is the key ingredient of a caseload management model.

The practitioners’ personal needs for performing work activities and deriving personal and professional satisfaction from these activities to meet the needs of clients are important considerations in caseload management as an entity consisting of a variety of factors.

Also, patients’ expectations generally exceed agency or company limitations.

Approaches to Caseload Management

Proactivity of Caseload Management

The prompt and adequate movement of all patients from an case opening to case closure, without allowing delay of movement due to lack of decisions, paperwork, or other factors counselors can control.

Benefits of Improved CaseloadManagement Practices

Increased EfficiencyIncreased EffectivenessExplicit Standards and LimitationsIncreased ProfessionalismStress Reduction and Job

Satisfaction

Basic Manager Functions in Caseload Management

Planning

Cassell & Mulkey (2004) reflect on the steps projected for the individual level:

1. a personal vision,2. writing down assumptions that shape a

caseload,3. from the assumptions listing, stating the

issues facing a caseload and the desired objectives,

4. developing measures for each objective, and

5. choosing strategies that will satisfy each objective.

Well-constructed planning forecasts the degree to which the counselor, the client, and the agency as a whole accomplish tasks.

Organizing

The cluster of skills involved in organizing initiates a true action function, and focuses on the establishment of the next priority that will engage the caseload manager.

Organizing involves actively bringing resources together.

Such resources include people, financial resources, placement sources, and equipment to establish the most beneficial pattern for attaining established goals.

Organizing

Organizing is a priority and can be viewed as having two prime responsedemand areas that elicit action from counselors:

1) structural demands and2) humanistic demands.

Simple conceptual steps for organizing

1. Sizing: Involved is the collection and integration of all relevant data into a framework that at this stage does not pass judgment on the information units gathered.

2. Patterning: Patterning or “chunking” is the process that cohesively brings together related elements and rejects other elements until they are similarly patterned.

3. Selective Ordering: Now, the process or organizing begins to take form. Chunked elements begin to demonstrate attached values that mentally prioritize them for the action phase that follows.

4. Switching: Switching redirects the ordered chunks to the sizing phase for processing through the other steps in order to remain continually organized and thus avoid dead-ending behaviors.

Coordinating

The coordinating function has long been recognized as a major counselor responsibility. Many authorities have attempted to assign coordination as the only function of a counselor, whereas others have attempted a compromise position centering on a balance between coordination and counseling. However, our earlier discussions on roles and functions have eliminated this controversy.

Coordinating

The skills necessary for being an effective coordinator include the ability to recognize and access community resources.

That is, the professional must be knowledgeable and alert to the rehabilitation entities that will be most cost effective when trying to meet the objectives for the program strategies on the caseload.

Coordination challenges the rehabilitation professional to become a link between client needs and the wide range of possible services available to meet those needs.

Therefore, the rehabilitation practitioner must develop the comprehensive skills that will enhance performance and personal functioning, and contribute to power communications

Directing

Rubrics that fall into the directing category are sometimes elevated to separate functions. The most commonly listed activities are

1. Motivating2. Communicating3. Leading4. Guiding5. executing.

A more parsimonious conceptualization of the activities and duties of the counselormanager is satisfied if we consider these activities as key elements under a directing function.

Controlling

Controlling is the last of the skill clusters that direct the previous skills within operational boundaries.

In this model of management, the controlling function forms a base or central position that has a significant impact on each of the other four functions.