Social HMOs: lessons learned and future direction

Brandeis University researchers collaborated with the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) to develop the "social HMO" concept in the early 1980s. Four initial sites in Portland, Oregon; Minneapolis; Brooklyn, New York; and Long Beach, California, implemented programs in 1985. Its success has prompted HCFA to expand the program, which is similar to a Medicare risk-contracting HMO but with more comprehensive benefits and a modified funding mechanism, to six new sites by the end of this year.