What best describes the difference between care planning and care coordination?

• A. Care planning sets goals and activities to meet needs; care coordination ensures services and providers work together smoothly and timelines are aligned.
• B. Care planning is about budgeting; care coordination is about clinical decision-making.
• C. Care planning focuses on patient education; care coordination focuses on evaluation.
• D. Care planning is only for medical settings; care coordination is only for social services.

Answer: (A)

The main idea is that care planning creates the road map for a patient’s care, while care coordination makes sure that road map actually gets followed across different providers and settings. Care planning identifies the patient’s needs, sets specific goals, and outlines what needs to be done, by whom, and by when. Care coordination takes those goals and coordinates the actual delivery of services—sharing information, scheduling, referrals, and aligning timelines so all providers work together smoothly and nothing falls through the cracks.

The other descriptions don’t capture that complementary relationship. Budgeting isn’t the focus of planning itself, and clinical decision-making isn’t the coordinating function that keeps multiple providers aligned. Limiting planning to patient education or evaluation misses the broader action plan, while tying either function only to medical settings or only to social services ignores how both roles span multiple settings and disciplines. This combination—goal-driven planning plus integrated, timely execution across providers—best describes how care planning and care coordination work together.