Mainly, the major medical insurance plans are indemnity and managed care. Indemnity plans pay the policy holder's medical expenses up to the policy limits. With this plan, insurance companies pay a percentage of the total charges, regardless of how much the charges are. For hospital visits, the provider will pay a specified amount every day for a specified number of days. The predominant benefit of this type of plan is that you can generally pick any doctor or healthcare provider that you want.
Managed care plans are available in a number of forms which includes HMOs, POSs, and PPOs. This type of insurance is more popular than other types of plans, because they are generally more economical. With these alternatives, you pay a small co-payment anytime you need to see the doctor. Many managed care plans give you the freedom to select your personal physician while others require you to visit whomever is on duty at the time of service. The reason being practitioners in the managed care network have already agreed on the costs that the insurance company will reimburse them for covered treatments. Nearly all plans even allow you to see an out-of-network physician, however, your out of pocket costs will be a lot higher.
Managed healthcare plans are best for budget-conscious consumers that are trying to find low cost medical insurance. For those that prefer to select a specific healthcare provider that is not participating with any managed care plan, will often go for an indemnity plan.
