Posted by pseudoname on October 10, 2006, at 13:26:35
In reply to Re: Drug Cornucopia......??? » yxibow, posted by ronaldo on October 10, 2006, at 8:53:53
Hi, Alan.
> What is a PPO? What do the letters stand for?
I'm not Jay, but I'm just switching to a PPO, so I can't resist answering. It means Preferred Provider Organization (or Participating Provider…). It means you buy health insurance but then you can only go to certain –participating– doctors & hospitals, instead of being free to go to ANY doctor or hospital. It's not as restrictive as an HMO in that you don't need prior approval from an assigned primary doctor to see a specialist, bureaucrats don't decide what course of treatment you can or can't pursue, and you can choose any doctors you want within the provider list. All of the listed providers have agreed in advance to a certain fee structure.
For me, I would be paying $210 a month for unrestricted (non-directive, I think it's called) insurance, but if I take the PPO option and agree only to see doctors that are on the list, my premium will only be $130 a month. The thing is, ALL the doctors & hospitals I would consider seeing are on the PPO list, anyway, so I'm not losing much.
poster:pseudoname
thread:693332
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20061003/msgs/693572.html