Women’s Health and Health Maintenance Organizations: Screening and Preventive Services

Managed care programs were originally formed to control rising healthcare costs. Their concept was to improve membership health status, and in effect, control healthcare costs. It is believed that provision of both preventive and screening services can achieve this objective because these services may delay or halt the onset of disease, and thus, probably avoid more expensive treatments in the future. The Capstone team assessed the probability of screening and preventive services in American women, in order to examine the relationship of HMO membership and the provision of clinical preventive and screening health services. This study was conducted by using a national cross-sectional design.