Episodes of care: an overview of legal and regulatory issues

The use of managed care, with its chief goal of delivering cost-efficient health coverage, predominates the American health benefit arena. Though the advent of managed care unquestionably has saved billions of dollars since the late 1980s, patients raised on a diet of unfettered treatment have seen choices decrease and care diminish. "Episodes of care," in which teams of professionals contract to provide an entirety of health care services involved with a given procedure in exchange for a fixed, global fee, allows for broader choices for patients at competitive costs for insurers.