There is a common joke going around the managed care industry for the past several years where the medical director of a HMO passes on and is at the gates of heaven and St. Peter looks at his chart and says ok you can enter but you can only stay for three days.
Medical directors have enormous influence on medical cost and quality.
Managed care is basically an approach that superimposes organizational structure, control, measurement and accountability upon the health care system to effect a balance in the utilization of health care resources, cost containment, and quality enhancement. To accomplish those strategies, the HMO medical director is expected to understand health care and to have a management orientation in a managed care system. The philosophy incorporates an understanding of the role and limitations of the managed care organization as it attempts to organize, staff, and control delivery systems. That results in a belief in the job of the medical manager as a change agent, a coach to the profession and a leader ready to confront the hard issues. They need not be in a primary medical specialty, have a degree in management, maintain hospital privileges or plan to keep up a private practice.