Philadelphia's capitation plan for mental health services.

Dr. Sharfstein's Introduction: Prospective payment is the major economic change that is reshaping the delivery of medical care. Capitation financing for the chronic mentally ill is an innovative and promising alternative to underfunded and bureaucratically rigid public programs on the one hand and underfunded retrospective cost-based Medicaid programs on the other. This month's column describes one such capitation plan. Its impact on the target population as well as on the use of resources by persons with long-term and severe mental illnesses will require close evaluation.