Managing Managed Care: Quality Improvement in Behavioral Health

by Institute of Medicine, Committee on Quality Assurance and Accreditation Guidelines for Managed Behavioral Health Care, Constance Weisner (Editor)

Managed care has produced dramatic changes in the treatment of mental health and substance abuse problems, known as behavioral health. Managing Managed Care offers an urgently needed assessment of managed care for behavioral health and a framework for purchasing, delivering, and ensuring the quality of behavioral health care. It presents the first objective analysis of the powerful multimillion-dollar accreditation industry and the key accrediting organizations. Managing Managed Care draws evidence-based conclusions about the effectiveness of behavioral health treatments and makes recommendations that address consumer protections, quality improvements, structure and financing, roles of public and private participants, inclusion of special populations, and ethical issues. The volume discusses trends in managed behavioral health care, highlighting the emerging role of the purchaser. The committee explores problems of overlap and fragmentation in the delivery of behavioral health care and discusses the issue of access, a special concern when private systems are restricted and public systems overburdened. Highly applicable to the larger health care system, this volume will be of particular interest to all stakeholders in behavioral health?federal and state policymakers, public and private purchasers, health care providers and administrators, consumers and consumer advocates, accrediting organizations, and health services researchers.

Hardcover

First published April 23, 1997

About the author

The National Academy of Medicine (NAM, formerly the Institute of Medicine-IOM) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the National Research Council (NRC).

The National Academy of Medicine provides national advice on issues relating to biomedical science, medicine, and health, and serves as an adviser to the nation to improve health aims to provide unbiased, evidence-based, and authoritative information and advice concerning health and science policy to policy-makers, professionals, leaders in every sector of society, and the public at large.

Operating outside the framework of the U.S. federal government, it relies on a volunteer workforce of scientists and other experts, operating under a formal peer-review system. As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and continuing achievements in a relevant field as well as for their willingness to participate actively.