How Does Case Management Help Mental Health Treatment?

Summary: Case management helps people in mental health treatment by creating a system wherein case managers collaborate with patients, providers, and families to ensure patients have access to all the support they need during their treatment journey, from the clinical treatment modalities identified in their treatment plan to various types of holistic support that can improve overall mental health outcomes.

Key Points:

• Good case managers support patients from the beginning to the end of treatment.
• Case managers may help patients create an ongoing care plan for long-term wellbeing.
• In addition to facilitating clinical care, case managers help patients in a wraparound manner, which means their support extends beyond the treatment center and official treatment sessions.
• Case managers often offer support in non-treatment areas such life skills, relationships, nutrition, exercise, and educational/vocational assistance
• Case managers help patients access vital community resources that promote long-term health and wellness.

Case Management and Case Managers: Hidden Heros of Mental Health Treatment

When you commit to treatment for a mental health disorder, whether it’s mild, moderate, or severe, you may not be in an ideal psychological or emotional space for managing all the practical details related to your treatment and recovery.

We understand, and we can help.

We want all your attention and energy focused on healing and recovery because that’s what it takes: your full focus and commitment to the process.

While you prioritize yourself and your treatment, we support you with a personalized service designed to address the elements of your life that aren’t necessarily specific to treatment and recovery but are essential for your treatment and recovery success.

The service we provide for all patients is called Case Management, and the people who provide it are called Case Managers.

What is Case Management?

Let’s start with a definition of case management provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH):

“Case management is defined as a health care process in which a professional helps a patient or client develop a plan that coordinates and integrates the support services that the patient/client needs to optimize their healthcare and psychosocial goals and outcomes.”

If you research case management online, you’ll learn it’s a concept not limited to mental health care. Experts identify at least six types of case management:

1. Broker case management: this type of case managers act as facilitators between patients and various care and treatment resources.
2. Clinical case management: these case managers work most often in mental health care and help patients through all phases of treatment: we’ll share details on clinical case management below.
3. Strengths case management: this type of case manager identifies the strengths patients have and ensures their treatment team understands and leverages those strengths throughout the treatment process.
4. Rehabilitation case management: this type of case management is most often coordinated by rehabilitation nurses supporting patients in a hospital setting, who focus on coordinating the various aspects of treatment to “promote optimal patient outcomes.”
5. Assertive community treatment (ACT): this approach to case management is a multidisciplinary, direct service model that focuses on integration of services and promoting a holistic approach to treatment and recovery.
6. Intensive case management: these case managers have experience and expertise in helping people with severe mental illness navigate the complexities of the treatment process, and have access to all available services within the care system.

In practical application, these six types of case management may overlap and reinforce one another. A case manager may be trained in – and apply – all or most of these approaches as they support patients with various needs and goals.

How Case Managers Help Mental Health Treatment

In the big picture, having a case manager during mental health treatment is like having an older sibling looking after you and checking on things you can’t look after or check on yourself. They make sure patients have everything they need for treatment success that’s not the actual treatment. They’re involved from the very beginning and stay with patients until the end of their official treatment program. In addition, many case managers help patients develop an ongoing care plan to support patients when their official treatment ends.

On a granular level, case managers have a specific role in treatment and recovery, and each state defines and regulates the scope of the services and support case managers provide to people in mental health treatment and recovery. While the details vary from state to state, case managers work within the guidelines to support people in treatment in life domains critical to health and wellness, including but not limited to:

• Physical health
• Social health
• Ongoing education/academic achievement
• Work and employment assistance
• Home/living situation
• Financial education/assistance accessing support
• Relationships and family

When case managers operate effectively, they actively promote the concept of total health and wellness espoused by the World Health Organization (WHO) and align clinical practice with the WHO definition of mental health.

The WHO defines health as “…a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” The WHO indicates mental health is:

• More than the absence of mental disorders
• An integral part of health: there is no health with9ut mental health
• Influenced by a wide range of socioeconomic, biological, and environmental factors

Further, the WHO defines mental health as:

“…a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community. Mental health is fundamental to our collective and individual ability as humans to think, emote, interact with each other, earn a living and enjoy life.”

When we think about case management in terms of these WHO definitions, we see that what case managers do is help patients achieve total health, which enables patients to – and we paraphrase – get back to living and enjoying all aspects of life.

But exactly how do they do that?

Case Management: Four Core Support Areas

With full understanding that case management varies by the patient, the treatment center, and the therapeutic context, the four primary services case managers provide are:

1. Finding and Supporting Patients/Identifying Specific Needs

• First, case managers identify patients who don’t have case managers and connect with them. Next, case managers create a recovery-based partnership that helps patients have voice and choice in creating their treatment plan. When patients are involved from the beginning and have an advocate – like a case manager – on their side, they can maintain a proactive and optimistic approach to treatment. From the start, case managers help patients connect with community services, prioritize housing stability and safety, and facilitate timely access to critical resources.

2. Ensuring Continuity of Care/Integrated Coordination of Care

• Case managers help keep treatment and recovery on track as patients move through the various levels of support and care. Goals related to continuity of care/care coordination include:
  • Ensuring patients receive the services needed to support a full life in recovery
  • Confirming patients have a crisis plan
  • Facilitating full access to support and services
  • Ensuring recovery progresses without disruption

3. Helping Patients Establish/Maintain Clinical and Community Connections

• Case managers help patients connect with all the supports and services they should have access to, including things like housing support, food support, family and community support, transportation, and any government assistance programs. Case managers help patients locate resources, apply for resources, and make and keep appointments to access resources.

4. Care Coordination/Ongoing Support

• Case managers keep an eye on patient progress during treatment. They verify patients receive all the support identified in their treatment plan, confirm the support they receive addresses all their needs, determine if they need additional/different services, and inform the treatment team if the treatment plan needs to change to accommodate patients as they grow and change in recovery.

That’s a good overview of case management: the words that appear over and over are ensure and facilitate, because that’s the core of what case managers do. They make sure patients get the right care for them at the right time and that they can access that care without undue stress.

The Benefits of Case Management

It’s easy to see how this type of support can help people in a variety of ways in a variety of different circumstances. Case management systems are designed to help patients access everything they need on the treatment journey. While case managers focus primarily on external factors that support treatment, they also communicate with the care team – of which they are a part – to monitor progress and confirm patients receive all the elements of care in their treatment plan.

In that way, the presence of a case manager can help a patient in treatment feel less alone, more supported, and confident someone has their back so nothing about them or their treatment falls through the cracks.

Evidence shows the following benefits of case management:

• Improved overall outcomes in mental health treatment
• Improved social functioning
• Reduced mental health symptoms
• Increased patient satisfaction
• Increased family satisfaction
• Reduced burden of care on families

That last point is important. Mental health treatment is challenging for the patient, but it’s also challenging for family members and loved ones. Case managers can relieve anxiety and stress associated with the practical details of treatment that often fall to family members, who themselves may be overwhelmed by the entire process, and need help connecting with insurance, social services, and other necessary – but often frustrating – aspects of treatment.

In that way, the presence of a case manager also helps families of patients in treatment feel supported and less alone, too: when they’re free from the daily management of practical details, they’re more able to offer the emotional support their family member needs.  When the entire family is on board, knows what to do, and why, outcomes improve – not just for the patient, but for everyone involved.