Customer Reviews

Managed Care: What It Is and How It Works, Second Edition (Managed Health Care Handbook ( Kongstvedt))

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The content of the book overall is well thought out and easy to read. Chapter 1, The Evolution of Managed Care, is an excellent chapter. The Medicaid and Medicare sections of Chapter 5 are excellent. Chapter, 7, Quality of Care, is an excellent chapter--one of the best on quality I've read. (reviewed by Carmella M. Sebastian, MD, Senior Medical Director, First Priority Health, The Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania HMO)

The book covers the basics in an understandable and logical order...it is well-organized and complete. Chapter 3, The Infrastructure of Managed Care, is very interesting and informative - is very good at describing how managed care organizations do what they do. Chapter 4, Provider Networks, and Chapter 5, Purchasers and Managed Care, are very good chapters with good descriptions of provider networks and purchasing arrangements. (Reviewed by Bernard J. Turnock, MD, MPH, Professor and Director of Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago.)

From the very first page, I found this book difficult to get through. Not only is it a very dry book, one gets bogged down in complicated sentence structure and undefined terminology. I think this book is probably designed for folks who already know a lot about managed care (see the bios for the two previous reviews). For someone like me, new to pharma, this book just wasn't basic enough to truly grasp the concept of managed care.

This may be ok for someone who knows nothing about the healthcare industry (why they would want to read a book on managed care is beyond me). but for anyone already working in healthcare, this book is so basic in its content that they would not learn much new. I bought this in hopes of using it as a tool to educate new hires on the healthcare industry, in general, and specifically managed care. Unfortunately, I don't see this book being a source of enlightenment.

The book is great and delivered prior to the start of my course. The book's condition was as advertised!

Thanks