xxAACP Newsletter, Volume 11, Number 2, Spring 1997
Letters and Notes
I'm writing in response to your Autumn, 1996 lead article "Survival" Collaboration Versus Competition in the Era of Managed Care." (Community Psychiatrist, Vol. 10, No. 4)
At the risk of being branded an out-of-touch academician, if I was really willing to turn down the offer from the Medicaid-HMO (as 90% of the participants of the workshop said they would do), I would first try to thwart the HMOs divisive tactics by attempting to initiate a collaboration with the other member agencies of my association. The association as a whole would be in a far stronger position to negotiate a respectable contract with the Medicaid-HMO, and the individuial members would feel far more empowered by a successful outcome to this negotiation than by refusing to deal the the Medicaid-HMO at all.
Jules Ranz, MD
Director, Public Psychiatry Fellowship
Columbia University
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