ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book examines providers' beliefs and expectations about the future more closely. It describes conflicting beliefs about the etiology of mental illness and the implications of different etiologies for treatment and care. The book discusses the treatment ideologies of providers. It argues that managed care should not be understood in terms of the traditional bureaucratic model in which organizational structures produce efficient outcomes; instead, managed care exemplifies the commodity model in which organizational structures are the products of wider institutional demands for efficiency. The book explores the organizations within which providers carry out their work, and examined the conflict between bureaucratic and professional authority, as well as the consequences of managed care for working conditions and service offerings in public mental health care organizations. It describes one public sector approach to managed care, which has sought to preserve the principles of community-based care.
