title: Battlefield Florida.
abstract: What did we discover in our Florida review? We found that south Florida has the highest Medicare cost in the country fueled in part by an abundance of specialists, traditional emphasis on high-end tertiary care, and relatively minimal historic managed care. In retrospect the history of high costs created the high AAPC for this area. But, the high visibility of potential pay-offs hasn't been lost to the roving bands of national HMOs in search of new markets. For many reasons, Florida has become a magnet for out-of-state HMOs, hospital chains and practice management companies. With the influx of new players, the Florida battle zone will soon become a very interesting marketplace, if it isn't already. Maybe Darwin was right. In the evolution of healthcare in Florida it may be the "survival of the fittest."
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Pogue
mesh_terms: D002204:Capitation Fee; D002391:Catchment Area, Health / Q000191:economics*; D004465:Economic Competition / Q000639:trends*; D005431:Florida; D006123:Group Practice; D018166:Health Care Reform; D006273:Health Facility Merger; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008389:Marketing of Health Services; D006278:Medicare / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration; D014481:United States