The last time Psychiatric Practice and Managed Care published a
list of the 10 largest managed behavioral health care organizations was in
August 2001. At that time the alphabetical list looked like this:
In March the newsletter Psychotherapy Finances published a list of
the top 20 managed behavioral health plans based on lives covered. Half of the
plans listed seven years ago have disappeared altogether. OptumHealth
Behavioral Solutions, which wasn't even on the 2001 list, is now the largest
plan, reportedly covering 43 million lives. (Optum appears to be a behavioral
health program offered as part of United HealthCare.)
Here's the entire list in alphabetical order with the number of lives
covered as reported by Psychotherapy Finances:
A couple of caveats about the new list: Some of these companies may offer
only employee assistance programs (commonly referred to as EAPs) or work life
products rather than full behavioral health care, and the information on the
number of lives covered in all likelihood comes from the companies' marketing
departments.