Managed care and provider satisfaction in mental health settings.

We assess the satisfaction of mental health providers using four dimensions from the medical practice literature--degree of autonomy, relationship with patients, compensation, and administrative burden--and extend current work on professional satisfaction to include frontline service providers rather than only psychiatrists or other physicians. In contrast to results reported for primary care settings, we find that the impact of managed care on satisfaction is minimal for the mental health providers in our study of a Medicaid capitation demonstration in the southeastern US. Instead, variables relevant to everyday working conditions have an important effect on job satisfaction.