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The first HMO in the United States was Ross-Loos Medical Group established in 1929 in Los Angeles, California.
A health maintenance organization (HMO) is a prepaid health plan. As an HMO member, you pay a monthly premium. In exchange, the HMO provides maintenance care for you and your family, including doctors' visits, hospital stays, emergency care, surgery, lab tests, x-rays, and therapy.
A health maintenance organization arranges for this care either directly in its own group practice and/or through doctors and other health care professionals under contract. Usually, your choices of therapy, diagnosis, doctors and hospitals are limited to those that have agreements with the HMO to provide care. However, exceptions are made in emergencies or when obviously medically necessary.
Because HMOs receive a fixed fee for your covered medical care, it is in their interest to make sure you get basic health care for simple problems before they become serious. HMOs typically provide preventive and early detection care, such as office visits, immunizations, well-baby checkups, mammograms, and physicals. The range of services covered vary in HMOs. Some services, such as outpatient mental health care, often are provided only on a limited basis, and more costly forms of care, diagnosis, or treatment may not be not covered.
In some HMOs, doctors are salaried and they all have offices in an HMO building at one or more locations in your community as part of a prepaid group practice. In others, independent groups of doctors contract with the HMO to take care of patients. These are called individual practice associations (IPAs) and they are made up of private physicians in private offices who agree to care for HMO members. You select a doctor from a list of participating physicians that make up the IPA network. If you are thinking of switching into an IPA-type of HMO, ask your primary doctor if he or she participates in the plan.
In almost all HMOs, you either are assigned or you choose one doctor to serve as your primary care doctor. This doctor monitors your health and provides most of your medical care, referring you to specialists and other health care professionals as needed. You usually cannot see a specialist without a referral from your primary care doctor who is expected to manage the care you receive.
From wikipedia used with permission