The external provision of Health Maintenance Organization mental health services.

The author describes the three ways mental health services may be provided in a health maintenance organization (HMO)--by an internal department of psychiatry, by one or more unrelated external autonomous care providers, or by an external autonomous group of providers. He proposes that the latter type is the best model, offering many of the advantages of the internal department while delivering more personalized, higher quality care at lower cost to the HMO. However, certain conditions must exist, including convenient location, regular conferences with other HMOR physicians, and the provision of educational and preventive services, if the superiority of this model is to be maintained.