Preferred provider organizations: options for Medicare

Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs) offer purchasers of care several benefits, including expenditure reduction, utilization control, improved quality of care, and efficient management. Although Medicare could benefit from these outcomes, the program lags behind the private sector in PPO development. The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) must address several policy issues and constraints as it develops PPOs for Medicare beneficiaries. The agency must identify services and providers to include in the PPO, develop program sponsorship and administration methods, create viable provider and beneficiary incentives to participate, identify sources of PPO cost savings, and examine the role of medigap insurance policies in PPO development. In this article we discuss three possible PPO models for Medicare: a service or population specific PPO, an integrated PPO/medigap policy, and a Medicare Part A/B PPO. We conclude by identifying several issues that require further research before these PPO models can be tested.