Social Worker - Case Management
About The Position
Under the direction of the Department Director, the Social Worker coordinates patient care from pre-admission through hospitalization and post-discharge follow-up. The role emphasizes collaboration with patients and families, nurses, physicians, and other health team members to meet patients’ physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. The Social Worker helps patients and families cope with severe or long-term illness and challenges in recovery and rehabilitation. Responsibilities include gathering psychosocial histories, addressing environmental difficulties that interfere with medical care, and conducting routine discharge planning. The position maintains and updates social work case records, refers patients to community agencies and resources as needed, and uses a problem-solving process of assessment, problem identification, goal definition, plan development, evaluation, and plan revision to support optimum patient outcomes. This is a PRN weekend position at St. Joseph Medical Center in Houston. The role maintains a caseload of more difficult or complex patient-care problems and supports safe, compliant, collaborative patient care.
Requirements
- Approximately six to twelve months of on-the-job experience to gain full knowledge of federal, state, and local discharge-planning regulations and health and welfare resources and facilities.
- Current state license as a Social Worker or Professional Counselor.
- Current American Heart Association Healthcare Provider certification.
- Knowledge of social work or licensed professional counselor theories, therapies, and casework-process techniques.
- Knowledge of public welfare principles, normally acquired through completion of a Licensed Professional Counselor program or a Master’s degree in Social Work with coursework in Medical Social Work; a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work or licensed BSW through the grandfathering process and/or work experience may count in lieu of a Master’s degree.
- Interpersonal skills to obtain information from patients and families, provide counseling, and interact effectively with patients’ families and hospital patient-care personnel.
- Analytical skills to assess patient needs, develop discharge plans, and provide sound advice and guidance.
- Ability to concentrate and pay close attention to detail for up to fifty percent of work time while interviewing patients, providing therapy, preparing discharge plans, and performing related work.
Nice To Haves
- Coursework in Medical Social Work is preferred.
Responsibilities
- Support and communicate the Mission, Vision, and Values of St. Joseph Medical Center.
- Follow HIPAA guidelines to prevent or detect unauthorized disclosure of Protected Health Information.
- Promote patient and employee safety through proper identification, reporting, documentation, and prevention of medical errors in a non-punitive environment.
- Demonstrate leadership, accountability, responsibility, and effective verbal and written communication in collaboration with team members.
- Maintain a regular caseload of more difficult or complex patient-care problems.
- Contact and interview patients and families to assess social, financial, and environmental situations; review information from patient-care staff or medical records to determine patient needs.
- Obtain psychosocial histories from patients and families.
- Participate in conferences with other health-care professionals to communicate environmental problems that may affect a patient’s response to treatment.
- Maintain knowledge of current developments in the field through relevant reading and attendance at seminars and conferences.
- Communicate with physicians as warranted by the patient’s condition and evaluate patients’ psychosocial adaptation to the hospital environment daily.
- Update patient records with information about social problems and patient and family progress.
- Refer patients to designated community agencies or resources for financial assistance, counseling, and other assistance as needed.
- Assess each patient on admission for discharge-planning and educational needs, plan patient care, and ensure patient and family teaching is complete.
- Uphold the Standards of Conduct and Corporate Compliance, adhere to and help enforce applicable compliance policies, complete compliance education as requested, and set an example for staff.
