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A health maintenance organization, or HMO, is a type of managed care organization or managed health care organizations. Many companies sign up with health maintenance organizations, or HMOs, in order to provide health care coverage to their employees. Some health maintenance organizations specialize in working with larger employers while others mostly work with smaller employers. Under HMOs, people choose their primary care physician from a list of providers that are part of the HMO. People who need to see a specialist will need to see a specialist in the HMO if the patient expects to be covered for the treatment they get. Some health maintenance organizations are staff model HMOs that have centralized buildings where participating physicians work. Other health maintenance organizations are group model HMOs, which pay participating physicians as a group. Many health maintenance organizations are network model HMOs that contract with many individual physicians and providers.
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