HMO vs. Private Insurance

Private health insurance coverage today is on its last set of legs. At one time, it was a very popular way to provide low cost health insurance for yourself and your family members. Not all that long ago it was families that took care of each other and did whatever they had to do to come up with the money to pay the medical physician and to pay the hospital bill.

Medical health care physicians would make house calls and you would be surprised at what they would accept for payment from some of the long-standing patients. Many times hospitals would make accommodations for those who still owed money to come back and work in the hospital until the bill was paid off.

Private insurance is a fairly simple plan, yet it has worked well and those subscribers who partake are quite satisfied with little to no intrusion. With private health insurance, the insured is free to see any medical physical of their choice with little to no questions asked by the provider. You will pay a percentage of the cost per medical physician visit and be expected to pay a higher than average annual deductible.

Other than that, you are left alone to make your own decisions each year. An HMO or Health Maintenance Organization is more like a group insurance plan that offers the subscriber an average monthly cost for health insurance that is relatively low in comparison to other varied health care plans. When you think about it, do you really have a clear choice of health care plans?

In order to be accepted into a Health Maintenance Organization health care plan you must fill out a questionnaire to give the provider a little background information as to your medical history. Then you are obligated to choose a health care provider as your primary medical physician and this can be difficult for some individuals.

What happens when you are healthy, at least up to this point, and do not even know a medical physician? Are you then obligated to choose one from your local telephone book just so you can give the health insurance provider a name? You as the insured are also under obligation to receive a referral from your chosen medical health care physician before you can even make an appointment with a specialist if you are in need of one.

Something else to consider is that you are obligated to remain only with those medical physicians, specialists or not, because they themselves have a signed contract. Sadly, though the HMO is there to help provide you with the best medical health care physicians and specialists, they are often closer in tune with the cost rather than the quality.