PubMed · 10356488
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D C Bellavia, R J Schulhof. 1996. Managing without managed care.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10356488/
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BACKGROUND: In the mid-1990s, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system initiated a systemwide reengineering to, among other things, improve its quality of care. We sought to determine the subsequent change in the quality of health care and to compare the quality with that of the Medicare fee-for-service program. METHODS: Using data from an ongoing performance-evaluation program in the VA, we evaluated the quality of preventive, acute, and chronic care. We assessed the change in quality-of-care indicators from 1994 (before reengineering) through 2000 and compared the quality of care with that afforded by the Medicare fee-for-service system, using the same indicators of quality. RESULTS: In fiscal year 2000, throughout the VA system, the percentage of patients receiving appropriate care was 90 percent or greater for 9 of 17 quality-of-care indicators and exceeded 70 percent for 13 of 17 indicators. There were statistically significant improvements in quality from 1994-1995 through 2000 for all nine indicators that were collected in all years. As compared with the Medicare fee-for-service program, the VA performed significantly better on all 11 similar quality indicators for the period from 1997 through 1999. In 2000, the VA outperformed Medicare on 12 of 13 indicators. CONCLUSIONS: The quality of care in the VA health care system substantially improved after the implementation of a systemwide reengineering and, during the period from 1997 through 2000, was significantly better than that in the Medicare fee-for-service program. These data suggest that the quality-improvement initiatives adopted by the VA in the mid-1990s were effective.
Prior to the era of managed care in the US, health care delivery was managed by the professional activities of physicians. Managed care replaces management by profession with bureaucratic management structures and oversight, such as utilization review and gatekeeping (required referrals to specialty care). Practically, this means that physicians cannot use the professional relationships that typified practice under fee-for-service medicine, potentially changing not only what physicians do (e.g., order test or not, refer or not), but also how they do what they do. In this paper I look at just one of the changes brought about by managed care: contractual arrangements that require primary care providers to refer patients to a closed panel of specialist physicians. Through an in-depth case study of 45 primary care providers' in the USA who face restricted specialist panels for their managed care patients, but not for their fee-for-service patients, I investigate how the practice of referring is changed by this requirement. First, I use interview data to describe primary care providers general preferences for referral consultants, as well as their views of the referral process and potential barriers in it. Next I present data from all referrals over a four-week period to analyze the extent of referral relationships in actual referrals. Finally, I conclude by discussing some ways that managed care entities can facilitate rather than diminish referral relationships among physicians.
Developing more effective approaches to disability prevention has been a longstanding challenge for the workers' compensation system. A major obstacle to this goal has been the lack of communication and interaction between employers and physicians who care for injured workers. From 1995 through 1997, the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries sponsored a major demonstration program, known as the managed care pilot (MCP), to assess the effects of managed care on medical and disability costs, patient satisfaction and employer satisfaction. We developed a telephone survey and administered it to 243 employers as part of the MCP evaluation. Topics covered in this survey include satisfaction with treatment rendered, duration of lost work time, work modifications, and satisfaction with communication received during the employee's recovery period. Employers in the intervention (managed care) condition were more satisfied with the managed care/occupational medicine system than the employers in the comparison group were with the fee-for-service system. MCP employers were satisfied particularly with the frequency and quality of communication received from the health care provider regarding return to work and work modification issues. Improved employer-provider communication may foster early return to work and thereby have a beneficial effect on health and employment outcomes for injured workers.