Life Care Planning and Case Management Handbook

Book excerpt: Life care planning is an advanced collaborative case management specialty practice focused on assessing, evaluating, coordinating, consulting, planning for, and monitoring necessary services for individuals with complex medical care needs over their lifetime. This handbook provides a comprehensive resource for all people involved with catastrophic impairments and chronic medical care case management. The Life Care Planning and Case Management Handbook, Fourth Edition, begins by defining the roles played by each of the key team members working with the life care planner. It provides planners with insights critical to successful interactions with medical and health care–related professionals as well as the team members they are most likely to encounter as they work to build an accurate and reliable life care plan. Next, the text offers up-to-date information on the medical conditions most frequently encountered by the life care planner. The contributors, who are recognized experts in their disciplines, also address issues in forensic settings, ethics, standards, research, and credentials. The fourth edition includes numerous chapters on general issues, as well as updated standards of practice from the International Academy of Life Care Planners (IALCP), Life Care Planning Consensus Statements, and valuable step-by-step charts and checklists. Completely updated and expanded, this revised handbook now includes new chapters on multicultural considerations in life care planning, admissibility of life care plans in U.S. courts, and Canadian life care planning practice. Additionally, infused in other chapters, is new information on medical coding and costing for life care planners, life care planning in non-litigated contexts, as well as research and education within life care planning.