What is a provider network?

A provider network refers to a group of healthcare providers, such as doctors, hospitals, and specialists, who have contracted with a health insurance plan to deliver services to its members at negotiated rates. This arrangement helps to control healthcare costs while ensuring that insured individuals have access to a range of medical services.

When members of a health plan seek care from these contracted providers, they typically benefit from lower out-of-pocket expenses. This network structure is central to many managed care plans, including Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs), where access to in-network services is incentivized for cost savings.

Other options do not accurately capture the essence of a provider network. For instance, while filing insurance claims and managing patient information is important in healthcare, those aspects pertain more to administrative processes rather than to the definition of a provider network. Also, a type of health insurance policy is a different concept altogether, as it refers to the specific insurance product rather than the structured group of healthcare providers in a network.