Managed Care and Mental Health

In less than a decade, the treatment of mental disorders and substance abuse has undergone a dramatic change with the emergence of for-profit companies that provide managed “behavioral health care.” To the angry dismay of many psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, decisions that were once largely their province must now be made in tandem with these commercial companies, with whom providers contract. Thus, like other physicians who have confronted the new imperatives of managed care,1,2 providers of mental health and substance-abuse services (behavioral health care) are no longer simply advocates for the patient; they must satisfy multiple masters . . .