PubMed · 10244277
The source did not provide an abstract. Follow the original record for more information.
Explore connections, maps & timelines
C J Dirksen. 1979. How practical is the method?. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10244277/
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.
KEEP EXPLORING
The claim that managed care plans are more efficient than fee-for-service plans has been made so often that it has reached the status of folklore, but the evidence is inconclusive. The claim is usually based on one or both of the following errors: (1) lower medical care costs mean lower total costs (medical plus administrative costs) and (2) lower HMO premiums mean HMOs are more efficient than fee-for-service plans. The first assertion ignores evidence indicating that managed care has driven up administrative costs for both insurers and providers. The second ignores evidence that managed care plans have numerous methods of shifting costs that are unavailable or less available to fee-for-service plans. The lull in health care inflation during the mid-1990s is often cited as evidence that managed care is efficient. But the lull may have been caused not by the spread of managed care but by the near-simultaneous occurrence of four events: a downturn in the insurance underwriting cycle, the 1990-1991 recession, endorsement of managed competition by numerous politicians, and the merger fever triggered by those endorsements.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Although the healthcare industry still is in the beginning stages of e-health adoption and has yet to achieve a significant return on e-health investments, healthcare organizations can anticipate increasingly positive results over time. To capitalize on the potential of e-health, financial managers need to adopt a clear, concise approach to valuing e-health investment options, making investment decisions, and managing an organization's return on invested capital. Key actions to take are developing a strategy, looking beyond cost reduction to other advantages of e-health strategies, understanding the needs of the stakeholders, becoming comfortable with experimentation, having realistic expectations, and instituting a process for valuing e-health investments that does not duplicate valuation processes for traditional information technology projects.