Winning One for the Team

This time of year everyone is talking about football, and around here, our Arkansas Razorbacks. My thoughts of football tend to revolve around the latest talk of permanent brain damage resulting from the game...but I digress; The topic of this blog is really about having a game plan. In Case Management, we work as a team with the injured worker, carrier, employer, and physician to get the injured worker rehabilitated and back to work. That's the ultimate goal. Sometimes it's an easy win, and other times it feels like reaching Super Bowl level. Let me walk you through some of the play books we have going on.

One of our senior CM team is currently working a catastrophic injury and I saw in an email today she has set forth her CM plan to the carrier for requesting a hand surgeon specialist. The injured worker is likely still weeks away from restoring function to his hands, but early consultation and planning are essential to keeping the recovery process moving forward with the best outcome.

Another RN on our CM team is working a lumbar spine injury that has not RTW since his injury. The injured worker just had a follow up MD evaluation this week, and the physician indicated MMI and RTW are projected in 1-2 months, but he would order a FCE to determine RTW parameters. Planning ahead, she isn't going to wait until the next month before scheduling the FCE. She has already scheduled the FCE to be done the next day after the MD visit. If MMI and FCE order are not achieved at that visit, the FCE can easily be cancelled, but she has planned ahead to avoid delay, and get the earliest RTW release.

And yet another RN CM has a shoulder injury patient that underwent surgery last Tuesday. Planning ahead, our CM obtained a work status prior to surgery for an appropriate LD RTW on the day following surgery. If something happens in the operative course where that is not appropriate, restrictions can be revised. But she didn't wait until the ten day post op visit to obtain a LD RTW, saving a week of TTD.

I could continue to name examples for all our nurses, because for all our cases we always have a case management plan, and a back up plan. Kind of like the receiver getting the football from the quarterback (physician) and running with it. Is your team color JMS Blue?

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