managed care in modern health care. Specifically it will include a brief history of managed care, along with some pros and cons about the process.

Managed care is an arrangement where an insuring organization accepts the risk for providing a defined set of health services, using a defined set of providers, for a defined population, in return for a fixed or regular per capita payment" (Lammers and Geist, 1997, p. 46). Briefly, for managed care to survive and prosper, member physicians must do the minimum health care necessary to keep the patient healthy and still turn a profit.

Managed care is not a new phenomenon in health care. In fact, it has existed in the United States since the 1920s. "Historians cite the 1930s as the beginning of managed care as we know it today. The launch of the Kaiser Health Plan during World War II resulted in the first...
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