Nurse Case Manager II, Palliative & Oncology Care

In addition to the responsibilities listed below, this position is also responsible for providing case management services for palliative or oncology-care patients to ensure quality of care using an interdisciplinary approach; creating and providing population-based reports on outcomes specific to palliative or oncology-care patients; acting as medical liaison between palliative or oncology-care patients, families, community resources, and medical staff/providers; making quality improvements to help implement department and program specific standards, processes/workflows, policies/procedures, and educational tools for palliative or oncology-care patients; facilitating a smooth transfer to home or an alternate facility, and acting as a contact person for dispositions while resolving moderately complex issues; and making post disposition follow-up calls to all patients who are not referred to an ambulatory case/care management program.

• Promotes learning in others by proactively providing and/or developing information, resources, advice, and expertise with coworkers and members; builds relationships with cross-functional/external stakeholders and customers. Listens to, seeks, and addresses performance feedback; proactively provides actionable feedback to others and to managers. Pursues self-development; creates and executes plans to capitalize on strengths and develop weaknesses; leads by influencing others through technical explanations and examples and provides options and recommendations. Adopts new responsibilities; adapts to and learns from change, challenges, and feedback; demonstrates flexibility in approaches to work; champions change and helps others adapt to new tasks and processes. Facilitates team collaboration to support a business outcome.


• Completes work assignments autonomously and supports business-specific projects by applying expertise in subject area and business knowledge to generate creative solutions; encourages team members to adapt to and follow all procedures and policies. Collaborates cross-functionally and/or externally to achieve effective business decisions; provides recommendations and solves complex problems; escalates high-priority issues or risks, as appropriate; monitors progress and results. Supports the development of work plans to meet business priorities and deadlines; identifies resources to accomplish priorities and deadlines. Identifies, speaks up, and capitalizes on improvement opportunities across teams; uses influence to guide others and engages stakeholders to achieve appropriate solutions.


• Drives services related to the initial case assessment by: interviewing patients and their families to evaluate needs, goals, and current services independently; identifying and proposing process improvements for determining initial eligibility, benefits, and education for all admissions; analyzing and ensuring authorization data (e.g., authorization data regarding admitting/principle diagnoses, bed type(s), and disposition data for accuracy, after visit summary) and correcting and escalating inaccuracies; recommending and designing research plans that identify new and/or existing options to assure that quality, cost-efficient care is provided; and leveraging advanced knowledge to assess medical necessity for hospital admission and required level of care to inform physicians.


• Provides services related to monitoring and evaluating plan of care by: coordinating resources and services to assure continuity and quality of care, sharing advanced knowledge with others, and developing strategies; updating authorizations, attending case management rounds with clinicians, and updating diagnoses as needed; contacting own patients periodically to assess progress toward treatment milestones and care plan goals, and beginning to coordinate team members to do the same; identifying barriers to achieving goals and ensuring that they are discussed with the patient and care team thoroughly, and guiding team members doing the same; promoting best practices for verifying that all services remain consistent with established guidelines and standards; and documenting/updating the patients case in all medical files while sharing standards with the team.


• Drives services related to the case-planning process by: creating a client-focused case management plan with treatment goals based on the patients and familys/caregivers needs independently; collaborating independently with health-care team, patient, and caregivers to assure plan of care is safe, agreeable, and appropriate; and validating that the plan is consistent with regulatory, accreditation, and regional guidelines independently, and sharing feedback with team members as needed.


• Supports efforts to remain updated on current research, policies, and procedures by: researching, recommending, and attending pertinent seminars, workshops, and approved educational programs and workshops specific to professional needs; implementing systems, processes, and methods to maintain team knowledge of community resources; monitoring and/or reviewing operational team data and key metrics applied to own work; making suggestions for change or improvement as needed, and helping others to develop ideas as needed; and implementing policy updates to ensure that regulatory requirements are being met.


• Provides services related to patient disposition by: performing daily review for early identification of disposition planning activities; developing, evaluating, coordinating, and communicating a comprehensive disposition plan in collaboration with the patient, family, physician, nurses, social services, and other healthcare providers and agencies to meet each patients personal, psychosocial, economic, and cultural needs independently; and leveraging advanced knowledge to create, obtain, and approve authorizations/approvals as needed for services for the patient.


• Connects patients with existing services by: guiding others to assist patients with gaining access to care based on their needs, integrating or referring them into existing programs/services, and resolving moderately complex issues; referring patients independently to outside entities, ambulatory case managers, care managers, social workers, and/or internal/external resources as appropriate; utilization management for internal case management post acute care services; hospital level of care, post-acute care, skilled nursing facility (SNF), and durable medical equipment (DME), and transition and complex case management and making location-specific adaptations as necessary.


• Serves as liaison between internal and external care by: reviewing benefits/services available based on regulations or specific coverage to patients, families, and other members of the community, problem solving identified concerns, and connecting patients/families with the right entities to assist with benefits/coverage needs; providing case management to a caseload of low- and medium-risk patients referred to external facilities/agencies independently; applying strategies and concepts to independently propose recommendations in interdisciplinary team meetings with internal and/or external stakeholders; and leveraging advanced knowledge to act as a general resource for physicians, health plan administrators, and contracted vendors.