Contracting by managed care systems for pharmaceutical products and services.
The health care delivery system has received criticism because of its rapidly increasing costs. In an attempt to control costs, the administrators of managed care organizations are searching for cost control mechanisms. Thus, the administrators of managed care organizations appear to be searching carefully for any alternative method to lower the cost of delivering medical care to plan members. In this environment pharmacists must be extremely careful to study the cost of providing prescription services to managed care organizations, because they will be constrained by the obligations indicated in the contractual relationship. Any decisions to provide pharmaceutical services should be studied in detail after careful discussion with administrators of a managed care organization. Only after a careful analysis should a pharmacist make a decision to offer or not offer pharmaceutical services to a managed care organization.
College of Pharmacy, Idaho State University, Pocatello.
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WT
Sharp
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Strandberg
D003284:Contract Services; D006264:Health Benefit Plans, Employee / Q000458:organization & administration*; D007356:Insurance, Pharmaceutical Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D008329:Managed Care Programs / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010934:Planning Techniques