Practices of excellent companies in the managed health care industry

The health care profession in the USA has traditionally attracted some of the best talent the country has to offer, with medical practitioners enjoying high incomes due to employer‐paid medical indemnity insurance plans. There was no oversight process or quality standards governing the health care delivery process and no motivating factors to contain costs. Prior to the introduction of the Knox‐Keene Act in the 1970s requiring employers to offer managed care as an alternative indemnity coverage, the only known managed care company was the Kaiser Permanente Medical Plan. Until just over a decade ago, the concept of managed care was stereotyped as a low quality method of health care delivery. Criticisms from providers themselves suggested managed care systems meant withholding medical care for the sake of profit; “production line” medicine, and compromise in the delivery of quality health care. In order to refute that notion and grow as an industry, managed health care companies were required to take steps to prove their integrity, high quality of care, and cost‐effective methods. Today the industry is fast growing, setting management practices that are becoming benchmark standards for other industries too.