Plan Type

Health Maintenance Organizations, or HMOs, are almost all local plans and have a closed set of doctors. A few HMOs allow you to use providers outside the plan's network, a variation called "Point-of-Service" (POS). We label those HMOs that allow you to go outside their network of providers as HMO-POS. 

Exclusive Provider Organizations, or EPOs, are plans where you can use the doctors and hospitals within the EPO network without referral from your primary care doctor, but cannot go outside the network for care. There are no out-of-network benefits. You may be interested in this type of plan if you like the cost controls of an HMO but do not want to get referrals to see specialists, and the doctors you wish to see are part of the plan's EPO network. 

Consumer Driven and High Deductible Plans offer a health savings account (where the plan puts money in an account for you to use for your healthcare) coupled with a high deductible. We label these CDHP or HDHP. These may be national or local plans. 

Preferred Provider Organizations, or PPOs, provide benefits when care is provided through the plans preferred care-givers network. Most all of the national plans offer both preferred provider benefits (PPO) and, if you use non-preferred providers, fee-for-service benefits FEE. We present our cost comparisons for these national plans based on using preferred providers (PPO).