Roles of Advanced Practice Nurses in Oncology

The once identifiable hallmarks of the American entrepreneurial health-care system—access to care on demand, unrestricted provider choice, and a relatively stable delivery system—have been supplanted by a process of health-care management commonly referred to as managed care. In the broadest sense, managed care can be defined as a variety of methods to finance and organize the delivery of comprehensive health care with attempts made to control costs by limiting the provision of services.[1] This description of managed care characterizes the integration of financing, cost-containment strategies, and business principles with the delivery of health care. Or, as medical sociologist David Mechanic stated, managed care is moving health care “from advocacy to allocation.”[2]