Legal precedents affecting managed care. The physician's responsibilities to patients

Managed care, which has become a fait accompli in America, has produced a variety of concerns regarding the physician-patient relationship and the responsibility of physicians to their patients. This article investigates some of the conflicts that develop in this system and reviews important litigation as it relates to managed care. The author makes specific suggestions for how physicians might manage care when they feel they are being put into an ethical double bind by managed care companies or their third-party reviewers.