Patients still want choice: PPOs are eclipsing HMOs

Many are still willing to pay more for health care choice and access. Good luck selling them on socialized, choice-rationed medical care:

In particular, HMOs have lost ground to a kissing cousin, the preferred provider organization, or PPO.

The least restrictive of managed-care plans, PPOs allow health plan members to go outside of an insurer’s list of doctors and services, but at a greater cost to the consumer. A typical PPO might cover 80 percent of a surgery at an in-network hospital but only 60 percent at a facility not on the insurer’s list.

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