CONSUMERS: Three Managed Care Advice Books Reviewed
Three consumer guides to managed care are reviewed in this week's Washington Post "Health" section. Reviewer Victor Cohn, a former Post health care reporter, writes that consumer guides are necessary if patients "are to make the best" of managed care. The "best book all around," Cohn says, is Managed Care Made Easy, by Vikram Khanna. Khanna's book is "best on emphasizing that you are probably getting managed care today, even if you're not a member of a specific plan," and it "is best on what to do if you have a problem or grievance."
While Managed Care Made Easy provides a "more balanced" analysis, Cohn says another book -- The Insider's Guide to HMOs: How to Navigate the Managed Care System and Get the Health Care You Deserve -- provides a better look at how managed care organizations operate. Written by Dr. Alan Steinberg, a former Kaiser physician, The Insider's Guide "is wise about managed care doctors, how they think and work, and how a patient can get the best out of them."
Cohn also reviews The Complete Idiot's Guide to Managed Health Care, finding that it "suffers from too many words wrapped around its good information." Overall, though, Cohn finds that this book "is crammed with information, and well worth a day's read-through for advice" (6/16 issue). Click the above hypertext link to the Post to read Cohn's full review and to see price/publisher information on the books.