Commentary: The benefits of collaboration in research: who will pay?

Collaboration between MCOs and researchers holds promise for benefiting consumers by working on quality-of-care-related research. There are at least three areas of collaboration that might benefit both researchers and MCOs: (1) the developing and validating of management and fiscal indicators, (2) developing and validating clinical indicators and (3) studying access to treatment for vulnerable populations. These three areas offer benefits to the MCO and unusual research opportunities for investigators. Barriers for both MCOs and researchers must be overcome before this work can be carried out, not the least of which is who will pay for the work to be done.