The Brazilian supplemental health care sector has been experiencing new health care models in the last few years. This paper aims at featuring how users perceive and how they express themselves in relation to the deployment of a program known as Family Health Strategy (FHS) by a self-management health care provider. Through focal groups, the research reveals that users present a rather clear view on the meaning of strategy, including its remarkable rationalizing elements. In addition, they percept contradictions as well as deficiencies in the formulation and deployment process, and they keep a high level of autonomy in the choice for more adequate services, which are greatly influenced by the type of insertion that they exert in the bank institution that maintains the health care service provider. Users also perceive the predicament presented by self-management regarding the maintenance of a broad authorized free access network and the advance towards turning FHS into the structuring backbone of its assistance network.
Supplemental Health Care; Self-Management Service Provider; Technological Transition in Health.; Family Health Strategy