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Journal of Medical Ethics logoLink to Journal of Medical Ethics
. 1999 Oct;25(5):382–387. doi: 10.1136/jme.25.5.382

Managed care and ethical conflicts: anything new?

C Meyers 1
PMCID: PMC479263  PMID: 10536762

Abstract

Does managed care represent the death knell for the ethical provision of medical care? Much of the current literature suggests as much. In this essay I argue that the types of ethical conflicts brought on by managed care are, in fact, similar to those long faced by physicians and by other professionals. Managed care presents new, but not fundamentally different, factors to be considered in medical decision making. I also suggest ways of better understanding and resolving these conflicts, in part by distinguishing among conflicts of interest, of bias and of obligation.

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Selected References

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