Now what? Educate, educate, educate.

Ideally, you should meet with your case management/UR team and decide how to deliver the message to your group. Honestly, I think that a group responds better to explanations coming from one of their own rather than inviting the head of case management to come and speak for an hour. Rather than risk setting up an adversarial relationship with case management, consider filtering the message through your leadership. As a group leader, you need to be able to interpret hospital-driven directives and deliver the information to your group in a constructive manner. As working hospitalists, we need to understand the nonclinical factors that affect us—and our hospitals. It’s part of the job.