Case Managers: Advocates for People with an Upper Limb Amputation

Many of our Arm Dynamics team members have relationships with case managers. Some of those relationships remain professional, while others have become friendships as the years have progressed. We understand that a hard-working, empathetic case manager is crucial for a patient’s success in several ways: getting back to work, becoming a successful prosthesis user and being able to live an active and independent life.

What does a case manager do? They oversee all aspects of their patients’ care. Here’s L. Greg Cunningham, American Case Management Association’s CEO on how case managers help: “While providing or coordinating care and resource needs, case managers collaborate with multiple professionals but maintain the individual’s personal preferences and desired healthcare goals at the heart of their work — true advocates for those they serve.”[1]

A case manager may schedule various doctors’ appointments, communicate with the insurance provider to coordinate referrals and authorizations and deal directly with prosthetic care providers like us. At our Arm Dynamics centers, nurse case managers are always invited to attend their patient’s evaluation with our upper limb team. Throughout the fitting and delivery process, we keep the carrier and nurse case manager informed of the patient’s progress, often including video progress reports. If multiple devices are recommended for a patient, we team up with the carrier and nurse case manager to develop a longer-term plan for phased care. We may start with one basic device, while working toward additional prosthetic solutions in the future to meet all the patient’s functional needs over time.

We understand that a collaborative team effort is essential for each patient to receive the holistic care they deserve. That’s one of the reasons why we have our prosthetists and clinical therapy specialists on-site at each of our centers, so we can offer comprehensive care. That’s also why we developed proprietary outcome measures to make it easy for case managers to assess their patient’s progress.

If you or someone who know is interested in speaking or meeting with our clinical team, please contact us. If you would like to leave a comment regarding this article, please do so below. Thank you to all those case managers out there who work so hard to help their patients get the care they need!

[1] https://www.acmaweb.org/section.aspx?sID=82