Managed Care M.D.

Doctors to patients, hospitals to insurers, no one can escape the managed-care revolution

Managed care is sweeping the nation.

The enigmatic industry now covers more than half the country’s population. By year-end 1995, 150 million people were enrolled in managed-care health plans, a 13 percent increase from the year prior, according to the American Association of Health Plans. And in Colorado, an estimated 60 percent of the population is covered by some form of managed care.

The shift is nothing short of a revolution, which kicked into high gear less than a decade ago, when the economic bite of health costs spurred…