Top 12 Medical Case Manager Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the competitive world of medical case management, standing out means stacking a broad, real, and reliable skill set. Show you can steer through tangled systems, smooth out communication, and support patients without missing the details that keep care safe. Put the right skills on your resume and you’ll signal exactly that—coordination prowess, smart resource use, and a knack for improving outcomes that actually move the needle.

Medical Case Manager Skills

1. Patient Advocacy
2. EMR (Electronic Medical Records)
3. HIPAA Compliance
4. Care Coordination
5. Clinical Assessment
6. Resource Allocation
7. Interdisciplinary Collaboration
8. Cerner
9. Epic Systems
10. Utilization Review
11. Discharge Planning
12. Motivational Interviewing

1. Patient Advocacy

Patient advocacy means standing up for a person’s healthcare needs, rights, and preferences—clearing barriers, clarifying choices, and making sure care plans actually match the patient’s goals across the entire journey.

Why It's Important

It keeps the patient at the center. When their voice guides decisions, care gets more personal, outcomes improve, and trust grows. That’s the work.

How to Improve Patient Advocacy Skills

Sharpen advocacy by dialing in communication and coordination, while empowering patients to participate:

1. Enhance communication: Listen fully, ask plain questions, echo back key points. Clarity calms anxiety and prevents errors.

2. Educate patients: Explain conditions, options, risks, benefits, and rights in plain language. Provide concise summaries they can keep.

3. Build rapport: Show up with empathy. Be reachable. Follow through. Relationships carry the load when systems get bumpy.

4. Empower involvement: Encourage questions and shared decision-making. Offer tools—question lists, symptom trackers, medication schedules.

5. Protect rights: Know coverage rules, appeals paths, and community supports. Clear the way when access is blocked.

6. Coordinate relentlessly: Sync information across teams, reduce duplication, and close loops after every handoff.

7. Use technology wisely: Patient portals, secure messaging, and shared care plans cut friction and keep everyone aligned.

Advocacy evolves with each case. Keep learning, keep adapting.

How to Display Patient Advocacy Skills on Your Resume

2. EMR (Electronic Medical Records)

EMRs are digital patient charts—history, diagnoses, meds, allergies, labs, plans—all in one place. For a case manager, they enable tracking care, spotting gaps, and coordinating across settings.

Why It's Important

Fast, accurate access to information tightens workflows and improves safety. Better coordination, fewer errors, smoother transitions.

How to Improve EMR (Electronic Medical Records) Skills

Turn the EMR into an ally:

1. Simplify workflows: Customize views, templates, and shortcuts to surface what you need fast.

2. Push interoperability: Make sure data moves between systems cleanly. Exchange records, labs, and notes without copy-paste chaos.

3. Strengthen security: Role-based access, multi-factor authentication, smart audit trails. Privacy is non-negotiable.

4. Train continuously: New features arrive often. Short refreshers keep teams efficient and aligned.

5. Engage patients: Promote portal use, share visit summaries, and invite input. It improves adherence and trust.

Bonus: stay aware of information blocking rules under the 21st Century Cures Act—patients should get their information quickly and without unnecessary hurdles.

How to Display EMR (Electronic Medical Records) Skills on Your Resume

3. HIPAA Compliance

HIPAA compliance means safeguarding protected health information—privacy, security, and proper disclosure—across every channel you use.

Why It's Important

It protects patients, preserves trust, and prevents costly violations. Compliance is table stakes.

How to Improve HIPAA Compliance Skills

Make it daily practice:

1. Stay current: Track policy updates, including recent changes to reproductive health privacy and 42 CFR Part 2 alignment for substance use disorder records.

2. Assess risk regularly: Identify vulnerabilities in access, storage, and transmission. Fix gaps fast.

3. Harden policies: Clear rules for minimum necessary access, disclosures, and incident handling. Keep them visible and realistic.

4. Train everyone: Short, frequent training beats once-a-year marathons. Test knowledge. Refresh after incidents.

5. Secure communications: Encrypt email and messaging, lock screens, verify recipients, and avoid unsecured channels.

6. Audit and monitor: Review access logs, spot anomalies, and correct behavior quickly.

7. Plan for breaches: Define roles, timelines, and notification steps. Practice the plan before you need it.

How to Display HIPAA Compliance Skills on Your Resume

4. Care Coordination

Care coordination is the orchestration of treatments, services, appointments, and communication so the patient’s plan makes sense and moves forward without gaps.

Why It's Important

It cuts duplication, closes loops, and centers care around the patient—not the system. Better outcomes, fewer surprises.

How to Improve Care Coordination Skills

Make the system work together:

1. Use health IT: EHRs, shared care plans, and secure messaging reduce friction and keep teams in sync.

2. Build living care plans: Align goals, preferences, risks, and next steps. Update after every significant change.

3. Communicate clearly: Standard handoffs, concise updates, and easy-to-reach contacts. No mystery, no silos.

4. Own transitions: Hospital to home, rehab to primary care—handoffs need med reconciliation, follow-up scheduling, and patient education.

5. Leverage community supports: Transportation, food resources, caregiver training, home health. Social needs can derail medical plans—address both.

6. Measure and refine: Track delays, readmissions, missed appointments. Adjust processes and try again.

How to Display Care Coordination Skills on Your Resume

5. Clinical Assessment

Clinical assessment is a systematic look at history, symptoms, function, diagnostics, and risks—rolled into an actionable view of what the patient needs next.

Why It's Important

It guides care plans, targets resources, and confirms priorities for the team. Without strong assessment, everything wobbles.

How to Improve Clinical Assessment Skills

Upgrade both knowledge and technique:

1. Keep current: Review guidelines and emerging evidence. Update your mental checklists regularly.

2. Use digital tools: Structured templates, risk scores, and decision support boost accuracy and save time.

3. Think evidence first: Tie recommendations to research and validated pathways when possible.

4. Collaborate broadly: Pull in pharmacy, social work, therapy, and specialty input for a 360° view.

5. Center the patient: Values, goals, culture, and capacity matter. Tailor plans accordingly.

6. Communicate crisply: Summarize problems, risks, and next steps so anyone can pick up the thread.

7. Mind ethics: Consent, autonomy, and fairness should anchor your decisions.

How to Display Clinical Assessment Skills on Your Resume

6. Resource Allocation

Resource allocation means placing time, funding, services, and support where they’ll do the most good—fairly and efficiently—case by case.

Why It's Important

You have limits. Patients have needs. Smart allocation balances both, lifts outcomes, and keeps care equitable.

How to Improve Resource Allocation Skills

Be strategic and nimble:

1. Prioritize: Triage by urgency, risk, and potential impact. Reassess often.

2. Use the right tools: Case management platforms, capacity dashboards, and scheduling systems help prevent bottlenecks.

3. Tighten communication: Clear channels with providers, patients, and payers reduce delays and waste.

4. Keep learning: Short courses in operations, quality, or data analytics sharpen decision-making.

5. Build feedback loops: Track outcomes and costs, gather staff and patient input, and iterate.

6. Network for solutions: Share pathways and resources with peers across organizations to close gaps quickly.

How to Display Resource Allocation Skills on Your Resume

7. Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Interdisciplinary collaboration means aligning multiple disciplines around one patient’s plan—shared goals, shared information, shared accountability.

Why It's Important

Different expertise, one outcome. When teams combine strengths, care gets safer, faster, and more complete.

How to Improve Interdisciplinary Collaboration Skills

Make teamwork real, not rhetorical:

1. Open the channels: Routine huddles, clear escalation paths, and transparent updates keep everyone in step.

2. Clarify roles: Who does what, when, and how. Reduce overlap, close gaps.

3. Model respect: Value each discipline’s lens. Psychological safety fuels better decisions.

4. Hold case reviews: Structured case conferences surface risks, align plans, and reveal system issues.

5. Use shared tools: Task boards, checklists, and standardized handoffs make teamwork visible and reliable.

6. Invest in education: Cross-train and build interprofessional skills; the more we understand each other’s worlds, the smoother the work.

How to Display Interdisciplinary Collaboration Skills on Your Resume

8. Cerner

Cerner—now part of Oracle Health—delivers electronic health record tools and connected solutions that support documentation, population insights, and care coordination.

Why It's Important

For case managers, it centralizes information, supports team communication, and surfaces data to guide decisions that actually change outcomes.

How to Improve Cerner Skills

Work smarter inside the system:

1. Customize workflows: Tailor documentation templates, problem lists, and task queues to case management routines.

2. Leverage analytics: Use dashboards and population tools to spot risk, track follow-ups, and measure results.

3. Train often: Short, role-based refreshers keep skills sharp and reduce workarounds.

4. Go mobile when possible: On-the-go access to notes, messages, and patient data shortens response times.

5. Tighten communication: In-app secure messaging and shared care teams streamline coordination.

6. Create a feedback loop: Report friction points to IT, share user tips, and promote small changes that save minutes every day.

How to Display Cerner Skills on Your Resume

9. Epic Systems

Epic Systems provides a widely used EHR platform that connects clinical documentation, scheduling, messaging, and care coordination across care settings.

Why It's Important

It gives case managers quick access to complete patient data, promotes consistent handoffs, and supports collaboration across multiple organizations.

How to Improve Epic Systems Skills

Turn features into leverage:

1. Customize to your role: SmartTools, SmartPhrases, and personalized navigator flows speed documentation and review.

2. Keep training current: New releases bring useful tweaks—learn them early to avoid clunky workarounds.

3. Strengthen interoperability: Ensure outside records flow in cleanly so histories and meds stay accurate.

4. Use reporting and metrics: Track outreach, readmissions, and follow-up completion to improve processes.

5. Maximize communication: Secure chat, shared sticky notes, and cross-org exchange keep teams in sync and patients informed.

How to Display Epic Systems Skills on Your Resume

10. Utilization Review

Utilization Review (UR) evaluates whether services are necessary, appropriate, and efficient—matching level of care to clinical need and coverage criteria.

Why It's Important

UR protects patients from under- or over-treatment while managing costs responsibly. It supports quality, equity, and sustainability.

How to Improve Utilization Review Skills

Blend clinical judgment with structured criteria:

1. Master guidelines: Stay current with payer policies and evidence-based criteria (for example, InterQual or MCG) and apply them consistently.

2. Use technology: Integrate UR tools with the EHR to streamline chart reviews and reduce rework.

3. Communicate clearly: Maintain open lines with providers and payers; concise rationales prevent delays and denials.

4. Invest in training: Refresh knowledge of coding, documentation standards, and emerging clinical evidence.

5. Track outcomes: Monitor approval rates, appeals, denials, and patient results to spot patterns and improve.

How to Display Utilization Review Skills on Your Resume

11. Discharge Planning

Discharge planning organizes a safe transition from one setting to the next—hospital to home, home to rehab—so the patient knows what to do and who’s helping.

Why It's Important

It reduces readmissions, prevents med mishaps, and gives patients confidence on day one at home. Small details here matter a lot.

How to Improve Discharge Planning Skills

Start early, finish strong:

1. Begin at admission: Identify risks, goals, and likely needs upfront to avoid last-minute scrambles.

2. Assess comprehensively: Medical stability, meds, mobility, cognition, social supports, equipment, and home safety—cover it all.

3. Collaborate across the team: Physicians, nursing, pharmacy, therapy, social work, and caregivers contribute different pieces of the plan.

4. Educate clearly: Use teach-back for medications, red flags, wound care, diet, and activity. Provide written instructions.

5. Lock in follow-ups: Schedule appointments, confirm transportation, and send a clean, concise summary to the next provider.

6. Leverage technology: E-prescribing, discharge checklists, and alerts reduce errors and missed steps.

7. Measure and adjust: Track readmissions and post-discharge calls. Tighten weak spots quickly.

How to Display Discharge Planning Skills on Your Resume

12. Motivational Interviewing

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a collaborative conversation style that helps patients resolve ambivalence and commit to change—built on empathy, reflective listening, and autonomy.

Why It's Important

It boosts engagement, adherence, and confidence. Patients move from “maybe later” to “I’m ready.”

How to Improve Motivational Interviewing Skills

Practice the craft, not just the concepts:

1. Use the core processes: Engage, focus, evoke, and plan—one step at a time, tailored to the person in front of you.

2. Ask open questions: Invite stories, not yes/no answers. Let patients surface their own reasons for change.

3. Reflect and affirm: Mirror feelings and strengths. Summarize often to keep momentum.

4. Develop empathy: Curiosity over judgment. Patients feel it, and it changes everything.

5. Seek feedback: Record practice sessions (when appropriate), review with peers, and iterate.

6. Get coaching: Workshops and supervision accelerate growth and sharpen technique.

How to Display Motivational Interviewing Skills on Your Resume