What Are the Requirements to Be a Certified Case Manager in North Carolina?

Case managers are healthcare professionals who help people in a variety of ways, including coordinating patient care, advocacy, discharge planning, and supportive counseling. Case managers help their clients connect to resources and navigate healthcare systems. Case managers frequently have a background in social services, most commonly in social work or nursing. Certification and licensing requirements for specific case-management jobs vary per state, and North Carolina has its own requirements.

Education

• Professional case managers usually have a background in human services, either at the undergraduate or graduate level, and typically have degrees in sociology, psychology, social work or nursing. Prior to becoming certified, case managers will work in their field, and have experience in a specialized area, such as HIV/AIDS, people with disabilities, children or immigrants.

General Certification

• In the U.S., case-management certification is granted via the Commission for Case Manager Certification. This is true in all states. CCMC offers a certification exam for those who meet certain prerequisites. These qualifications include: twelve months of supervised full-time case management or twenty-four months of full-time work as a case manager, and specific experience in helping client directly address psychosocial problems.

State Requirements

• The state of North Carolina has specific requirements for case managers who work with people with mental illness and substance-use disorders. For these types of case managers, the CCMC certification alone is not enough. Rather, they need to have either a professional license in social work, marriage and family therapy, counseling, psychiatry or psychology, or both a graduate-level degree in a human service field, with at least one year of post-degree supervised experience, or be a board-certified RN. In addition, a case manager working with at-risk adults, specifically, must possess a social work degree and be able to recognize risk factors of abuse and neglect.