Managed Care
Health care in the United States is a complicated, costly, and
inefficient patchwork of services that results in millions of uninsured
Americans and disruptions and lack of continuity of care even for
those who are insured. Contrary to social work practice, most managed
care programs, operating on a medical model, focus primarily on
the elimination or treatment of symptoms, versus a social health
model, which views the patient from a biopsychosocial perspective.
Social workers provide more than half of all mental health services
in the United States, yet are underused in the medical model of
health care, a particular concern in some Medicaid behavioral health
contracts. Without mental health parity laws, which NASW advocates,
behavioral health may be restricted, even though adequate, affordable,
and accessible behavioral health services would have a positive
effect on the country’s prosperity and health. Unfortunately, these
services are often treated as dispensable.
Absent a national health care program of universal coverage, NASW
advocates standards for managed care in the areas of direct care,
consumers’ rights, providers’ rights, and regulation. Besides parity
in comprehensive coverage for physical and mental health, these
standards include:
