I have been a hospitalist for more than a decade a few years ago. At that point, I thought I should do something different. Luckily, my medical director supported me to join UM committee and start doing status reviews. I really liked the work. For the first time, I could read notes written by physicians from different specialties and learn a lot in the process.
Apart from the things I do not like about UM job, there are certain things I really like about Utilization Management job. Here I will list some of the things I really like about Utilization Management job.
- Remote work: I get to work from home for my UM job. It was really helpful during the pandemic time. It was very scary when I heard news of physicians losing life while taking care of patients. There was a time I even thought that I should quit my job and look for something else as I was still doing part time clinical work.
- Critical thinking: The search for clinical indicators in the whole chart and putting together all those indicators to arrive at a decision to support Inpatient status needs critical thinking which I love. Sometimes, it can be hard especially when length of stay is long, and documentation is poor.
- Healthcare Efficiency and Reduction of costs: It helps me to directly impact patient care by ensuring appropriate utilization of resources. This in turn helps improve revenue for the hospital I work for.
- Continuous Learning: I learn continuously as I read the charts and the treatments the patients get. Sometimes, I make a note of certain treatments or guidelines that I learn while reading charts. I get to read pediatric patients charts and OBGYN notes which I otherwise do not treat that much. I learn a lot in the process.
- Advocacy: This job helps me to advocate for patients while balancing cost-effectiveness. If the patient meets IP status, I feel that I am fighting for the patients by doing P2Ps and saving money for them when I overturn the denials.
- Career Growth: UM experience can lead to other roles in healthcare administration. I have seen physician advisors becoming healthcare leaders like Chief Medical Officer [CMO]. May be one day, I may choose to become a healthcare leader for some other organization.
- Spending time with kids: This career definitely helps to spend an hour extra a day with kids on an average. I could not do that with 12hr shifts as a hospitalist.
- Flexibility in job: My hospitalist job was 7ON 7OFF model. I used to work for 7 days in a row with 12hr shifts and it was stressful. Now, with UM job, even though the shifts are 12hrs each, I do not work 7 days in a row. I work anywhere from 1 day to 7 days in a row. Overall, it gave me more flexibility than my hospitalist job.
- Easy Transition: As I have been working in the same hospital for 14 years, I know how the process works very well in my hospital. Its very easy for me to reach other physicians and discuss or explain why we recommend change of status.
- Continue Clinical duties: Even though majority of my work is in UM job, I still am able to work in the hospital setting taking care of patients.