Significant Health Care Event Paper
Sarah Miller
HCS/531
February 22, 2015
Instructor: Georgetta Baptist

Abstract
Managed care has changed health care as a whole. Before managed care, providers were not knowledgeable about public health. Managed care made big changes for public health, and gave access to health care for those individuals who lived in rural areas, who otherwise could not have it, or the middle class that made too much for government insurance, but not enough to afford private insurance. How Managed Care Has Changed Health Care
As previously mentioned, health care providers did not have much knowledge of public health before managed care came about for the health care industry. Before managed care, ideas such as immunizations, management of infectious diseases, diagnostics, and laboratory testing were both public and personal health entities. They were mainly funded by government programs, but could be funded by third party payers without the instances of prior authorization. Patients were also free to choose what providers they had, and the insurance companies had little control over how the benefits were utilized. Today, managed care is the most utilized type of insurance in this country. The plans can differ from a loosely structured networks that give the provider and client more choices, to a tight health maintenance program. The looser structured programs provide limited controls on how it is used based on providers who would offer a discount to the company. Managed care insurances that are provided to lower income families through the government have a stricter set of rules, used to help with the absence of cost sharing. Managed care organizations thus have the capacity to dramatically influence who provides care, how the care is furnished, and who receives compensation. (Levi, Managed Care and Public Health, 2000).