The impact of prepaid medicine on the fee-for-service practice.

It is much more than just a learning process for physicians to understand the benefits offered by a new arrangement. The introduction of capitated medicine into a traditionally fee-for-service medical group is far-reaching, and it will affect even parts of the practice that may have been considered untouchable. The primary consideration of groups discussing prepaid involvement is most often utilization review. While this is very important, there are many other less obvious areas of impact. Quality assurance, practice size and specialty makeup, physician compensation incentives, contract management, data processing demands, fee schedule changes, and patient advocacy are but a few of the many areas that should be taken into consideration by the medical group manager, physicians, and board when making a decision about whether to introduce a prepaid component into a fee-for-service practice.