Your Canadian dental health insurance personal could be a PPO plan. Dental Preferred Provider Organizations (dental "PPO"'s) are a "closed panel" type of dental insurance plan. The insurance company contracts with dentists so to form a network of treatment providers. As a part of the negotiation with the dental insurance company the dentist, in return for being included in the network and hopefully receiving an increased patient load, has agreed to discount their fees. The covered members of the dental plan must select from this list of network providers when choosing a dentist. Of course the terms and conditions of each PPO type dental insurance plan will vary but in general you might consider a PPO plan to be a hybrid between a capitation plan (a dental HMO) and a traditional indemnity dental insurance plan.