Concept of managed health care - By: Matt12

Managed health care started from United States of America. Gradually, other countries around the world also start applying this concept in their health care system. The main reason behind this new revolutionary concept is increasing cost of medical care. As we all know, due to reasons like economic growth and advancement in technology cost of medical care keep increasing on the yearly basis. Along with controlling cost of health care, improving the quality of medical care and preventing health frauds are other aims of managed health care.

Managed health care is based on the relation between enrolled patients and health service providers. This quality and cost control is achieved by using certain methods like cost sharing, providing incentives to doctors and patients, maintaining special contracts with different health care providers and other such things The criterions for selecting health service providers are very stringent. Furthermore, only few health providers are allowed to operate in a particular market. However, these providers must provide wide range of health services to the patients. Regular audit is done to make sure that high quality standards are maintained. Patients are encouraged to use the health services effectively by providing incentives. Similarly, incentives are also given to the health care providers that operate efficiently and are more productive. Even small things like number of days the patient stays in the hospital are controlled.

All this control of services does not mean that the system is rigid or inflexible in any sense. On the contrary, managed health care system is designed to be user friendly and business friendly at the same time. Patient can select the service provider of his choice and negotiate the cost of treatment. There are number of health benefits from choosing a networked clinic like trained doctors and other staff members. If for some reasons, you want to use out of network health service provider or hospital, you can do it because ultimately the choice is yours. But, be careful as these out of network health service providers some times charges more money than networked providers.

Managed health care is the way towards the achievement of universal health care. Due to managed health care more people are insured now than ever before. Insurance companies offers number of health care plans for individuals. These health insurance plans can be customized according to the budget and needs of various peoples. Large numbers of people are undergoing treatment like cancer and other life threatening disease, which they thought would never be possible because of the high cost of treatment involved.

About the Author

Matt Dimler is a freelance writer who writes about managed health care which is based on the relation between enrolled patients and health services health care plans

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