Understanding managed behavioral health care.

Managed care can be understood from an historical perspective as a reaction to perceived abuses by providers or an extension of earlier efforts to manage care in the public sector. It can be viewed as a young and emerging force--a fourth party to the health care transaction--that is rapidly progressing through a series of generations that redefine the approach to organizing and delivering services. And finally, because managed care emerges with so many faces, consumers and providers can perhaps best understand its implementation in a specific state or community by examining the multiple dimensions, such as those outlined herein, on which these initiatives vary. Until the forms and functions are more uniform, no simple definition of managed care will exist.