DATA LACKING ON MANAGED CARE

There is not enough well-gathered evidence for policymakers in the USA to make fully informed decisions about the merits of managed care plans and indemnity plans, according to Robert Miller and Harold Luft of the University of California, San Francisco, writing recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The writers conducted a literature analysis to compare health care utilization, quality of care and patient satisfaction of enrollees in managed care and indemnity (fee-for-service) plans. However, they said that "although existing literature provides useful results, policymakers clearly need much more evidence on managed care plan performance if they are to make evidence-based decisions about the future of the health care system."