Six Teams to Study Managed Care

WASHINGTON--Two federal agencies and a managed care organization are sponsoring a 3-year effort to determine how particular managed care policies affect the quality of care provided patients with chronic diseases, including protocols governing the referral of patients to medical specialists and arrangements for paying physicians.

Six research teams will receive a total of $8.5 million. The teams will be led by Jose Escarce, MD, PhD, of RAND, Santa Monica, Calif; Edward Guadagnoli, PhD, Harvard Medical School; Katherine Kahn, MD, University of California, Los Angeles; Tracy Lieu, MD, Kaiser Permanente of Northern California, Oakland; Barbara McNeil, MD; Harvard Medical School; and Elizabeth Shenkman, PhD, University of Florida, Gainesville.

The three sponsoring organizations are the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) and the Health Resources and Services Administration, both parts of the HSS, and the American Association of Health Plans Foundation, which provides research for the nation’s largest managed care