Managed Healthcare
The origins of managed care in the United States can be traced to the late 19th century, when a small number of physicians in several U.S. cities began providing prepaid medical care to members of f
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Managed Healthcare
The origins of managed care in the United States can be traced to the late 19th century, when a small number of physicians in several U.S. cities began providing prepaid medical care to members of fraternal orders, unions, and other associations of workers. Each member of a participating association paid a small annual fee to the physician and thereby gained unlimited access to the health care services the physician provided. In the early 20th century, railroad, mining, and lumber companies organized their own medical services or contracted with medical groups to provide care for their workers. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, prepaid contracts between employers and employee associations were relatively common. Starting in the 1970s, the federal government and many large private companies began encouraging their workers to join prepaid forms of health care groups. Despite this encouragement, however, prepaid group practice grew slowly. In the mid-1980s, employers increasingly turned to managed care to contain the spiraling cost of providing health care benefits to workers. During the 1990s, managed care enrollments soared. Today, the vast majority of privately insured Americans, and a sizable fraction of those in the government-sponsored Medicare and Medicaid programs, are covered by some form of managed care. ("Managed care | health insurance and system", 2020)
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