Decisions, decisions

Most people have to make decisions about their benefits at the end of the calendar year, but Justin's company's year runs July through June so we are currently making decisions for next year.

For the past 4 years, we have had the most awesome health insurance plan. It has been a cross between an HMO and a PPO - as long as we stayed in our network we payed low co-pays for doctor visits, but most other things have been fully covered with no deductible or coinsurance (thus making it like an HMO). But at the same time we could go see any doctor or specialist we wanted to, without having to designate a specific primary care physician or get a referral (thus like a PPO).

It has been really fabulous and has saved us TONS on our medical expenses.

This is all to change though. Although they are still calling the plan the same thing it was before (an Open Access Plus plan), they are completely changing it and doing away with the HMO aspect of it. Although we still will have co-pays for doctor's visits themselves, it will now be a PPO - anything more than a doctor visit we will have to pay for until we meet the deductible, and then we will pay a percentage of our costs over the deductible.

We know that we have been super-spoiled in the past as we look at how much we are going to have to start paying for our health costs now. And why are they calling it the same thing? It isn't the same at all.