This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor.—The central premise of the article by Dr Borowsky and colleagues¹ —that physicians have a unique and valuable window into the quality of health plan performance—is compelling. Although the physician viewpoint has all but been forgotten in public debate over plan performance measurement, the authors have made a valuable initial empirical attempt to correct this omission. For example, it is important to recognize that physicians were highly critical of mental health care in all 3 evaluated plans and that this presents an immediate opportunity for improvement. However, the authors overreach their data when applying these measures to assign report card rankings to these plans.

First, uncontrolled differences in plan type bias the results. The authors compared a staff model health maintenance organization (HMO) (plan 2) with 2 network model plans gatekeeper (plans 1 and 3, of which plan 3 had a primary care physician format). Previous work . . . [Full Text of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLE

Are All Health Plans Created Equal? The Physician's View
Steven J. Borowsky, Margaret K. Davis, Christine Goertz, and Nicole Lurie
JAMA. 1997;278(11):917-921.
ABSTRACT