February 2000
Not quite. In a politically driven system of management, the inevitable result was that market forces were ignored — to disastrous effect.
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care learned the hard way what Oxford Health Plan and others had already found out: HMOs need good information flow.
Reducing paperwork, coordinating guidelines, and credentialing physicians are three areas being explored without damping the competitive spirit.
Health plans want savings, and suspect they'll find some in hospitals — which, for their part, say the Balanced Budget Act has stripped them clean.
Gore, Bush, McCain, and Bradley differ in some of the details. None of them really stands out from the crowd.
An important voice in health care policy, who is also a practicing primary care internist, sees the group model as both efficient and high quality.
MCOs should consider adding pharmacist-managed anticoagulation clinics to the benefits of their members because both patients and physicians show a high level of satisfaction.
Departments
Washington Watch
Michael Levin-Epstein
Compensation Monitor
Managed Care Outlook