How Mco Medical Directors See the System

In this chapter, we describe and interpret our interviews with representatives of nine managed care organizations. We begin by providing background on how the managed care organizations were selected and recruited to participate, and the issues addressed in the interviews. We then report and interpret their experiences with emerging medical technologies. As with manufacturers, the discussion is somewhat general in order to avoid inadvertently revealing the identity of any participating managed care organization. Despite this limitation, we believe we convey various ways that MCOs handle emerging technologies.