SAN DIEGO: County Extends United Behavioral Health Contract

      San Diego County has decided to extend by one year its contract with United Behavioral Health to manage the county's mental health system, after the private company righted several problems with its physician network, the San Diego Union Tribune reports. The agreement adds a fourth year to the original three year, $13.2 million contract signed in September 1997, and awards the private company an additional $7 million. The contract extension marks the county's renewed faith in the company, which in 1998 had failed to sign up enough physicians to serve the 40,000 patients in the adult mental health system in San Diego. Psychiatrists and psychologists dropped out of United Behavioral Health's network when they were not paid in a timely fashion, and the county at one point threatened to terminate the original contract if United Behavioral Health did not clean up its act. County officials said that United Behavioral Health "has done a much better job since then," and psychiatrists concur that the problem has been resolved (Brooks, 8/17).