ABSTRACT
The revolution is the application of management processes and oversights to the health care benefits employers have established to cover the treatment of various disorders affecting significant numbers of American workers and their families. In fact, managed care has impacted, but hardly eliminated, traditional private practice for mental health professionals. Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO) seek to organize medical services into a coordinated, case-managed system of care that eliminates duplicative and unnecessary services. Also, they have as part of their goal the maintenance of health and the prevention of illness. HMOs view mental health professionals as specialist providers, sometimes requiring a referral from the patient’s Primary Care Physician as in the manner of a referral to a neurologist, cardiologist, or other specialist. In the late 1980s, yet another form of managed care appeared in the marketplace-the employer-sponsored mental health care specialty network.
