When Neither Indemnity Health Insurance Nor Managed Care Meets Your Needs

The two main choices open to you when itpolicyholders to seek treatment outside of the
comes to buying a private medical healthapproved network if they wish to do so, within
insurance plan are traditional indemnity healthcertain limits.
insurance and managed care. But what do you doUnlike a traditional managed care plan, the PPO
when neither of these alternatives meets yourdoes not assign a patient to a primary care
needs?physician through whom all treatment must be
This is one problem which has now beentaken and from whom a referral is required for
recognized by the insurance companies and todayspecialist care. This means that the policyholder is
there is an alternative in the form of a Preferredfree to consult any doctor within the network and
Provider Organization (PPO) plan which goes somecan also seek treatment from a specialist outside
way towards merging the two and providing thethe network if he or she chooses to do so.
benefits of both.There is a course a price to be paid for the ability
The choice up until now has been between anto seek treatment outside of the insurance
indemnity plan which essentially provides cover forcompany's network and policyholders will normally
accidents and unexpected illness, and which alsoneed to pay a proportion of their costs when
gives the policyholder considerable freedom insuch treatment is taken.
choosing where and when treatment is taken, andThis meets the needs of many people who want
managed care which focuses on providingthe freedom of choice offered by indemnity
everyday medical care, but restricts theinsurance and also meets the needs of those
policyholder to seeking care within an approvedpeople who are looking for a low cost plan to
network of healthcare facilities.cover their routine day-to-day medical needs.
In essence the new PPO is a managed care planprovides information on all aspects of medical
and provides relatively low cost care in exchangehealth insurance including individual and family
for policyholders seeking care from within thehealth insurance plans, short term health insurance,
insurance company's approved network ofexpat medical insurance, health insurance for
providers. However, a PPO also allowspre-existing conditions and much more.