FREE NEJM E-TOC    HOME   |   SUBSCRIBE   |   CURRENT ISSUE   |   PAST ISSUES   |   COLLECTIONS   |   Search Term  Advanced Search

Sign in | Get NEJM's E-Mail Table of Contents — Free | Subscribe

Previous Volume 335:136-137 July 11, 1996 Number 2 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

	Full Text Purchase this article Add to Personal Archive Add to Citation Manager Notify a Friend E-mail When Cited Related Article by Levinsky, N. G. Related Article by Weston, B.

To the Editor: We strenuously object to Dr. Levinsky's contention (Feb. 22 issue)¹ that "managed-care organizations introduce into the doctor–patient relationship powerful third parties whose economic goal is to limit medical care in order to reduce costs." This is as misleading as saying, "Physicians practice medicine to make money." Of course they do. They have families to support and retirements to fund. For a physician, however, long-term success requires that the goal of making money be secondary to that of providing quality care for patients.

Similarly, for health maintenance organizations (HMOs), the dominant goal cannot be to limit medical care . . . [Full Text of this Article]

References

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Leino-Kilpi, H., Nyrhinen, T., Katajisto, J. (1997). Patients' Rights in Laboratory Examinations: do they realize?. Nurs Ethics 4: 451-464 [Abstract]