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As large companies move their employees into managed care, they must concern themselves with the quality and price of their employees' health care. Based on a survey of Fortune 500 companies, we show that most are integrating several aspects of quality into their purchasing and contracting decisions by focusing on three dimensions--customer service, network composition, and clinical quality. Companies focus on the customer service dimension while the medical community emphasizes clinical quality.

This article develops a new method of decomposing the cost difference between HMO and non-HMO plans into observed risk selection, unobserved risk selection, utilization differences, and differences in provider reimbursement rates. We implement this method using a large national sample of employer-sponsored health insurance enrollees from the Community Tracking Study Household Survey.

Using panel data from two surveys of employees at one large employer from 2004 and 2005, this paper examines consumer-directed health plans’ (CDHPs’) influence on the use of health-related information and health services. We compare enrollees in a high-deductible CDHP, a lower-deductible CDHP, and a preferred provider organization (PPO). Enrollees in the lower-deductible CDHP were more likely than enrollees in the other plans to start using information.

In the 1980s, carotid endarterectomy was controversial because proof of efficacy was lacking, complication rates were high, and one third of cases were reported to be inappropriate.  Since publication of several randomized controlled trials (RCTs), rates of carotid endarterectomy have doubled nationwide.  This study assess the appropriateness and use of carotid endarterectomy since publication of the RCTs. 

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Using data from the American Hospital Association and the Medicare program, the authors analyzed the effects of financial pressure and market competition on changes in several measures of performance of 1,435 acute care hospitals between 1987 and 1989. Over the observation period, the least profitable hospitals constrained their growth in total expenses to half that for the most profitable hospitals (13.3% versus 27.6%) by limiting the growth of their staffs and their total assets.