The challenges posed by managed behavioral health care

Article Abstract:

Managed mental health care companies and mental health care providers must work together to develop new methods of practice that meet the particular challenges posed by managed care. These challenges affect medical ethics, the definition of mental illnesses, the management of limited resources, and accountability of providers. Managed care defines and treats mental illness in terms of the ability of a person to function, while traditional mental health care is concerned with long-term treatment of underlying illnesses. Mental health care is becoming geared towards the needs of larger populations rather than those of individual patients in one-on-one settings. Managed care is also causing psychiatrists to see more severely ill patients. Fees tend based on the complexity of illness rather than on the training of the provider. Finally, managed care permits case managers, often with less training than providers, to evaluate the quality of care. This arrangement may be replaced by large provider groups that assume financial risk and manage their own care.

Mental health benefits

---

How large employers are shaping the health care marketplace

Article Abstract:

Direct contracting for health care services is one method some large employers have adopted to control the cost of providing health insurance to their employees. In this model, employers join regional purchasing groups to directly contract for services from hospitals and physicians, bypassing insurance companies. Buyers Health Care Action Group in Minnesota developed the Choice Plus plan, covering 125,000 workers. Although innovative, doctors have complained that the bureaucracy remains and that rates are too low. Separating insurance from employment may be a better long-term solution.

Contracts, Employers, Health insurance, Insurance

---

Similar abstracts:

• Abstracts: The effect of poverty on access to oral health care. Health, oral health and poverty. Alcohol screening in dental patients
• Abstracts: A working partnership. Healthcare evaluation: evaluating the health service. Encouraging patients to take part in their own care
• Abstracts: The dating game: one man's diary of looking for love. The note. Love lies
• Abstracts: Prevention and managed care: opportunities for managed care organizations, purchasers of health care, and public health agencies
• Abstracts: Can going on-line make you healthier? How families are connecting now: e-mail is helping me get to know cousins I never knew I had

This website is not affiliated with document authors or copyright owners. This page is provided for informational purposes only. Unintentional errors are possible.