Florida Health Insurance Terms:
"Health Maintenance Organization HMO"

Please explain -- Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)

A legal entity that provides or arranges for a comprehensive range of basic and supplemental health care services. HMO's typically have a network of providers from which the insured must seek services. HMO's also tend to have lower out-of-pocket expenses than traditional insurance plans.

HMO’s are highly focused on managing your health care and telling you what Dr.’s and hospitals you can choose. They believe that preventive care should be used to keep individuals on the plan healthy. Many HMO polices cover your preventive bookwork, mammograms, and all items associated with annual physicals. They try to keep these types of plans cost effective by offering a much smaller network than some traditional plans. They tend to negotiate very good contracts with the medical industry, thus they can keep their costs low.

In many cases over the past few years HMO’s have caught a bad wrap. With new technological advances in healthcare many of the new types of treatment are not covered under HMO certificates. If you want choices when it comes to making serious decisions regarding your health in a time in need an HMO is probably not the plan for you. HMO health claims are paid on reasonable and customary charges.

More info on HMO: HMO INFO

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