Replying to a message of JIM WELLER to BILL SWISHER:

 JW> -=> Quoting Bill Swisher to Jim Weller <=-

 BS>> I visit a PPO the co-pay changes significantly

 JW> PPO? Why on earth would you visit a Parole and Probation
 JW> Officer with your health problems? (I checked out
 JW> www.acronymfinder.com later for alternatives and finally
 JW> figured out what you meant.)

Preferred Provider Organization - first cousin to the HMO (Health
Maintenance Organization).

 JW> That's another aspect of health care that is foreign to me.
 JW> I can choose any doctor who is allowed to practise
 JW> medicine.

Fee for service model.  Way back when I was working for an Omaha
hospital they used that model - although they much preferred that employees
seek help in-house.  Since I'm retired USAF I used the AF hospital at Offutt
AFB (Bush minor closed that hospital in 2004, I'm sure it wasn't the only
military hospital that's been closed); when the hospital switched to the PPO
model I dropped the coverage, because the military facility was not in their
group of preferred providers (although it was by far the lowest-cost provider),
I suppose because its use was restricted to active and retired military.

In 1995 I had a radical prostatectomy at the Offutt hospital, 7 days inpatient,
serious surgery etc. etc.; the total bill for all of it was $3,500 (not to me,
that's what the insuror was billed, since I'm retired enlisted I didn't even have
to pay for the meals).  Around the same time I was admitted to the hospital I
worked in for chest pains (which eventually turned out to be gastric reflux); 3
days inpatient, the hospital bill alone was over $3,000, and the ER physicians
and cardiac specialists billed separately.

 JW> The only restraint is, if I'm sent out to see a
 JW> specialist it is always in Edmonton the closest
 JW> destination. If I wanted to go to Calgary or Vancouver, say
 JW> because I had relatives there for support, they would only
 JW> pay the airfare as far as Edmonton.



 JW> Cheers

 JW> YK Jim


 JW> ... Doctors bury their mistakes; architect can only plant
 JW> ivy on theirs.

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