Negotiating successful managed care contracts.

The goal in managed care contracting is to create a coherent framework for treatment and payment decisions that is as unintrusive, flexible, and cooperative as possible for both payers and providers. That goal rarely is achieved with a generic contract that ignores the circumstances and interests unique to a particular payer and provider. This article highlights a number of key issues that arise in managed care contracting in general and offers several practical suggestions for resolving those issues.