Preferred provider organization
A preferred provider organization is a subscription-based medical care arrangement. A membership allows a substantial discount below the regularly charged rates of the designated professionals partnered with the organization. Preferred provider organizations themselves earn money by charging an access fee to the insurance company for the use of their network (unlike the usual insurance with premiums and corresponding payments paid either in full or partially by the insurance provider to the medical doctor). They negotiate with providers to set fee schedules, and handle disputes between insurers and providers. PPOs can also contract with one another to strengthen their position in certain geographic areas without forming new relationships directly with providers. This will be mutually beneficial in theory, as be billed at a reduced rate when its insureds utilize the services of the "preferred" provider and the provider will see an increase in its business as almost all insureds in the organization will use only providers who are members. PPOs have gained popularity because, although they tend to have slightly higher premiums than HMOs and other more restrictive plans, they offer patients more flexibility overall.
Police training officer
A version of the PTO Program was reworked in 2003 by practitioners from Reno and organizations across the United States to better reflect the use of the model by some organizations. A 2nd generation of the PTO was sponsored and written by the Police Society for Problem Based Learning and authored by the original writers, Cleveland and Saville in 2015. (http://www.pspbl.org/) The authors introduced it at the annual meeting of pspbl.org and many agencies have upgraded their model from the original versions. The latest version incorporates 15 years of learning from the original agencies. Early Modifications - known as the Reno Model and others - differ from the original COPS product and the earlier San Jose Model FTO Program. The modifications focus less on adult learning, Emotional Intelligence and Problem based learning. The 2015 upgraded version (PTO v2 - distributed through the non-profit "Police Society for Problem Based Learning" and reworked by other agencies since the original national PTO model was designed to allow flexible tailoring by each agency. For example, this is the case in the Charlotte-Mecklenberg police, NC, the Folsom police, CA., and the Edmonton police, Alberta, Canada. Each year a number of these models are brought to the Conference of the Police Society for Problem Based Learning and fine tuned by educational experts, police practitioners and agencies from across North America.