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The percentage of providers without a single managed care contract increased to 11.5% this year from 9.2%, a rate at which it had held steady since 2000, according to a national study released in May by the Washington, DC-based Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). But that percentage jump-although statistically significant-doesn't mean that doctors are leaving managed care in droves, says Ann S. O'Malley, MD, MPH, senior researcher for HSC and coauthor of the study. That myth "was largely promoted by the popular press through anecdotal reports, but based on [these data], the vast majority of doctors continue to contract with these plans," she says.