Developing MSOs in small markets. The community balance sheet approach.

The creation of management services organizations (MSOs) has been a phenomenon of the 1990s. MSOs allow for partnering of health care providers for multiple purposes, including managed care contracting, practice acquisition and management, and achieving financial and administrative economies of scale. Hospitals and physicians can come together to form successful joint ventures if certain critical elements are present, and if success can be defined by the use of a community balance sheet.