Medicare: Opportunities Are Available to Apply Managed Care Strategies
(Testimony, 02/10/95, GAO/T-HEHS-95-81).

Although the private sector quickly embraced managed care as an
effective way to control the growth of health care costs, Medicare has
moved more slowly.  GAO believes that Medicare could benefit from the
experience of the private sector and should test such managed care
strategies as competitive bidding for health maintenance organizations
(HMO).  Using market power to negotiate with HMOs over price and
increasingly over quality and the production of report-card-type
information, large employers are becoming more prudent and sophisticated
purchasers of health care.  The particulars of these efforts may not be
directly transferable to the federal government, but their goals of
using incentive-based solutions to contain costs, guarantee quality, and
inform consumers are worthy of consideration and testing.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  T-HEHS-95-81
     TITLE:  Medicare: Opportunities Are Available to Apply Managed Care 
             Strategies
      DATE:  02/10/95
   SUBJECT:  Medicare programs
             Health care cost control
             Health services administration
             Health maintenance organizations
             Quality assurance
             Program abuses
             Information dissemination operations
             Beneficiaries
             Medical services rates
IDENTIFIER:  Ohio
             South Carolina
             Florida
             Medicare Risk Contract Program
             
------------------------------------------------------------------------

We regret that electronic text of GAO Testimony is not available at 
this time. 

See the GAO FAQ - Section 2.0 for printed copy ordering information.
The FAQ is automatically retrieved with all WAIS search results or 
can be obtained by sending e-mail to: [email protected]