Case Management: Service or Symptom?

ers, nurses, physicians, and other pro-fessionals say they are providing case management,but theirdefinitions vary considerably. Reasons for providing case management are diverse, as are settings and targeted population groups. Most likely, fewtargetedgroups relish being called a "case " or being "managed. " Therefore, an assortment of more palatable terms is being used interchangeably with case manage-ment: care management, managed care, care coordination, case coordina-tion, continuingcare coordination, con-tinuity coordination, service integra-tion, and service coordination (Secord, 1987). Regardless of what social work-ers call it, there is a need to understand the basic case management concept and its implications for the profession. Case management is a theme throughout professional practice, and the literature is exploding with articles and books that describe case manage