Managed care is a comprehensive method to organize and structure the medical services that health associations provide. This method allows to reduce the expenses on medical assistance while improving the quality (Office for People with Developmental Abilities, 2011). Managed care has been growing exponentially since its implementation in the second half of the twentieth century. The current essay sheds light on the history of this method and showcases the key events in the chronicle of managed care.
The history of managed care is relatively short and, according to various experts, started either in the 1960s or 1970s. America has always been distant from the universal medical systems that are implemented in other developed countries, and managed care is also a term that is specific for the United States (Loeppky, 2019). Some authorities believe that this type of care was first implemented in 1968 with the foundation of Pharmaceutical Card System (PCS) (Cantrell & Reilly, 2020). However, most sources state that managed care was introduced with the act of the Health Maintenance Organization in 1973, as reported by Paul Starr in The Social Transformation of American Medicine (UC Berkeley Events, 2009). Since that time, the influence of this method kept growing and managed care became generally accepted throughout the country. In 2003, the program Medicare Part D was accepted under the 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (Cantrell & Reilly, 2020). This event even further advanced the influence of managed care programs.
Summing up, this essay traces the history of managed care in America and illustrates the most notable changes in the industry. The key events in the chronicle of this method were the implementation of PCS in 1968, the introduction of HMO in 1973, and the announcement of Medicare Part D in 2003. These milestones are considered to be the most relevant inflection points in the history of managed care in America.
References
Cantrell, S., & Reilly, C. (2020). Milestones in managed care pharmacy. Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy, 26(11), 1379-1383.
Loeppky, R. (2019). The real meaning of “managed care”: Adaptive accumulation and U.S. health care. International Journal of Health Services, 0(0), 1-21.
Office for People with Developmental Abilities. (2011). What does managed care mean? [Video file].
UC Berkeley Events. (2009). Managed care in the 1990s: Politics, policy, and oral history perspectives [Video file].