Question:
My beef with managed care comes down to this: captiation plans (and those
which encourage undertreatment) are, by their nature, unethical and
immoral.
I have worked with dentists long enough to tell you with some certainty
that the tendency to diagnose and treat according to insurance benefits is
so pervasive as to be commonly accepted. I do not believe it should be.
Managed care (and I include most 3rd party insurance in this, BTW) takes
from dentists their real responsibility to diagnose COMPLETELY. I predict
the pendulum will swing the other way eventually but I fear dentists are
going to get knocked over by it unless THEY get their act together to
fight managed care for what it does to hurt patients, not JUST their
bottom line.
Scott McDonald & Associates, Dental Marketing
Answer:
In medicine we call it mangled care. You should call it deCAPitated care!
You do not need it as: a. you are in a decent market where most buyers
have decent information. There is no priesthood. b. services are fungible.
c. sellers are price takers d. sellers are not behaving strategically. e.
buyers are price takers.
The only thing you have against a free market is that there are some
barriers to entry "licensing, etc.". I argue that the public needs these
barriers.
Resist this as managed care is a bad market form called a monopsony.
Purchasing power is another name for monopsony. It takes wealth from the
provider(seller) and transfers it to the purchaser(insurance firm) and
causes dead weight loss to the public(which means the public sees reduced
dentistry.i.e., dental wealth production is reduced...there is less
dentistry performed.). We have regulated monopoly but not monopsony, as it
is rare, and is controlled by unions--by in large. Grab an elementary text
in economics. Managed care means "monopsonic purchasing of professional
services and controlling what they do."
