| By Keith Londrie
There are several health insurance plans available
in the US: Managed Care, Fee-for-Service Plans,
Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), Point-of-Service
Plans (POS), Preferred Provider Organizations
(PPOs).
Managed Care Plans.
Managed care is very popular in the United States.
This type of plan helps insurance companies
to control the medical care costs. All kind
of plans have some sort of managed care program.
Generally speaking you might be asked to take
approval from your insurance company before
any medical care is received otherwise the costs
may not be covered by them.
Fee-for-Service Plans.
Fee-for-Service Plans is the traditional health
insurance type of plan in the US. Under this
plan the insurance company will pay your fees
when you use medical care.
This is a flexible medical insurance plan as
it allows switch of doctors and hospitals and
you can do this through the country. However
you have to careful as only part of the expenses
are covered by the insurer and you have to carefully
check the conditions of your insurance policy
not to end up with huge medical care costs that
you have to pay.
Health Maintenance Organizations.
Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) are
prepaid plans. If you are a member you pay some
fee every month. In return when you need to
use any kind of medical care it is arranged
from the organization. The HMOs use their group
of doctors and practices or other doctors that
have contact with the group. Usually your family
members are also covered by this kind of health
insurance plan.
If you are insured under this plan you will
have to choose a primary doctor who will monitor
your health and refer you to specialist when
needed.
Point-of-Service Plans.
The Point-of-Service Plans (POS) will provide
you with medical services if you pay a monthly
fee. They will either refer you to a doctor
from the doctors working in their organizations
or to other medical care providers in the plan.
Even if you choose to use medical case services
outside the plan your heal care expenses might
be covered by the policy.
Preferred Provider Organizations
The Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs)
is some kind of combination between the fee-for-service
plan and a health maintenance organization.
If you are insured under this plan you will
have to choose a doctor or a hospital from the
list of approved health care providers. Similar
to the HMOs you can choose to be treated by
a medical institution or a doctor outside their
network and still get some coverage. However
you might need to pay the larger proportion
of the bill yourself.
Keith Londrie II is the Webmaster of http://health-insurance-news-info.info
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