Chapter 4: Managed Care And Managed Care Organizations

Managed care in the United States will constantly be changing or evolving. This is due to advances in technology, improvements made by the providers and deliverers of the services, new federal and state laws, and a shift towards a performance based system. Managed care will be delivered to the consumer in an affordable, innovative, and reliable manner with an emphasis on quality and accessibility.

Managed care has become so popular because of its capabilities to deliver health care at

This paper provides an overview of the healthcare environment and its financing in the U.S. and define acute care and long term care. It addresses three important issues. First, it provides a snapshot of how health care is currently financed in the United States, including the differences and/or similarities between Managed Care Organizations. The second part of the paper examines the current federal government programs and various types of access to health care available to every citizen. The third part of paper examines the implications nurses have in

Managed Care is a complex health care system in which physicians, hospitals, and other healthcare professionals organize in an interrelated system of people and facilities that communicate with one another and work together as a unit, commonly referred to as a network. This network coordinates and arranges health care services and benefits for a specific group of individuals, referred as enrollees, for the purpose of managing costs, quality, and access to health care. The Managed care program may be provided in a variety of settings, such as Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) and Preferred Provider Organization (PPO). In Health Maintenance Organization, the insurance company will only pay for care within the network. The member will pick a primary care provider who coordinates most of their care. Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) usually pays more if the member will get care within the network, but they still pay a portion if the member will go outside. And Point of Service (POS) plans let you choose between an HMO and a PPO each time you need care (Merrick, 2013).

To attract Medicare patients, hospital must be contracted with Medicare. Hospital must also be contracted with private health insurance companies that provide Medicare Part A or Part B benefits. As per Kaiser Family Foundation, there are more than 55.5 million Medicare beneficiaries in the U.S. and Texas has more than 3 million. Hospital should have regular contact with senior citizens and can be made attractive to Medicare patients by offering sessions about healthy life style choices. Also offer regular disease management sessions, exercise group and organize social activities such as trips to mall, museums. Seniors should also be encouraged to take tour of the hospital.

Managed care and its competition is being viewed to solve their issue on the struggle to control

The U.S. Healthcare delivery system has been impacted with increasing administrative costs and a recent survey by Casalino revealed that physicians are spending about three hours each week working on the health plans they support. The time is being consumed on many administrative tasks that include confirming that the medication being prescribed is covered, checking if specialist is in the plan’s preferred network, and managing the preauthorization of medical forms for specific care.

Healthcare in the United States has reached a level of complexity which has perplexed Presidents, Congressional members and private industry for over a century (Palmer, 1999). While the healthcare system has evolved over the last century, policy decisions which have attempted to effectuate changes to cost, quality and access have been

At one point, managed care was the viewed as a resourceful tool in efforts to help assist employee, physicians and hospitals with quality health care, while controlling the cost of medical care in the United States. Over the past 30 years, managed care has been in the limelight of health insurance, as a dictator of how it will pay for medical bills. There have been many factors playing a role with managed care over the years. For example, due to the slim selection of options that are available with physicians in rural areas, and limited physicians to choose from, does this compromise the quality of care of each member or does this cut off services for members

Managed care, as it relates to providers healthcare, can be defined as a patient that only sees the doctors and specialists that are in their health plan. In compliance to this agreement, the co pays are lowered by a managing company who oversees all health care interactions of their clients. The reason these costs are kept significantly lowers is because the company has contracts with particular healthcare providers and hospitals. There are three different types of managed care plans that are available. These are Heal Maintenance Organizations (HMO), Preferred Provider Organizations (PPO), and Point of Service plans (POS). Each is a little different from the other, but provide the same basic service, managed health care.

“Prisoners of war”. When the Lakota people felt like prisoners on their own land when they were

The Basic Health program could be structure in several ways. It could expand programs such as Medicaid and CHIP and contract with managed care plans on behalf of its Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries outside the private insurance market. These changes would allow both programs to continue as a "separate program with a separate financing mechanism and risk pool from that of Medicaid and CHIP, but would leverage the state's existing infrastructure for information technology, contracting, rate setting, and other function" (Angeles, 2012). Alternatively, a state could expand the Medicaid managed care by increasing the number and types of service through different network of providers, other than those that serve Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries (Angeles,

The United States has a unique system of healthcare delivery, it is complex and massive. Twenty-five years ago; American citizens had guaranteed insurance, meaning the patient could see any physician and the insurance companies and patients would share the cost. But today, 187.4 million Americans have private health insurance coverage (Medicaid, 2014). The subsystems of American health care delivery are Managed care, military, vulnerable populations and integrated delivery

Managed care was established in order to manage health care cost, utilization, and quality (Kongstvedt, 2015). In managed care, health insurance is provided through HMO, PPO, and other types of managed care. It has the potential to reduced health care spending and improved the quality of care. However, despite of its success in improving the quality of care through preventive health care services, chronic disease management program, and so forth, many physicians are reluctant to be part of the managed care environment. Some of the reasons are the impact of managed care to physician’s income and autonomy. Under managed care, insurers have decreased the fees paid to physicians. There are different ways how managed care organizations control costs. One of this is through selective contracting with health care providers and hospitals to lower costs. In selective contracting, health care providers agreed to accept lower prices in exchanged for guaranteed volume of patients under managed care plan (Culyer, 2014). This paper will discuss more issues and trends in Managed Care Organizations such as the rise of Medicaid Managed Care spending, the new Medicaid Managed care Rule, and the collaboration of Managed Care Organizations and Accountable Care Organizations to reduce health care spending and improve efficiency of care.

Under capitation, physicians are given incentive to consider the cost of treatment. Pure capitation pays a set fee per patient, regardless of their degree of infirmity, and gives physicians an incentive to avoid the most costly patients (Miller, 2009). Providers who work under such plans focus on preventive health care, as there is greater financial reward in prevention of illness than in treatment of the ill. Such plans avert providers from the use of expensive treatment options. The proponents of this method of payment especially insurance companies argue that when health care providers are not paid extra for additional office visits any associated medical expenses, they are likely to be more conservative with their treatment assessments