The characteristics of highly effective therapists in managed behavioral provider networks.

As managed behavioral healthcare plans experience increasing requirements to measure outcomes, create report cards and adopt other quantifiable approaches to quality management, rating the effectiveness of behavioral healthcare providers is essential. The authors describe one aspect of their company's quality management program, which uses standardized assessments of client satisfaction, problem resolution and appropriateness of care to identify highly effective therapists. This process has yielded useful results that indicate some of the characteristics of highly effective therapists in such areas as experience, gender and personality type.