Glossary of Healthcare Terms

A group of legally affiliated organizations in which hospitals and physicians combine their assets, efforts, risks, and rewards in order to deliver comprehensive healthcare services to the community. The legally affiliated entities perform all strategic planning and payor contracting for the various interests.

Vertically integrated organizations that are frequently comprised of insurers alongside physician practices, hospitals, and other entities that provide medical care to a specific population.

A center which involves a multidisciplinary program whereby a team of medical specialists provides services to patients at the same location, allowing for a true multidisciplinary assessment of the patient

"A coherent set of methods and models on the funding, administrative, organizational, service delivery, and clinical levels designed to create connectivity, alignment, and collaboration within and between the cure and care sectors."

Also known as integrated medicine, it is the combined application conventional and CAM services that have shown to be safe and effective.

Includes practice protocols; treatment plans; procedure manuals; technical and specialty research; patents and patent applications; copyrights; trade names; and, trade secrets.

An advanced form of radiation therapy using three dimensional (3D) imaging and treatment delivery.

Physicians trained in the practice of critical care medicine.

The comparison of different subdivisions or analogous products within one organization, by which comparison is limited to within-company projects and processes in order to identify best practices.

An analytical technique that determines discount rate, which, when applied to the expected net economic benefits of the subject property interest, results in a zero net present value.

Outline tax-related implications of (1) how compensation plans are set up, (2) how compensation is paid, (3) how compensation is characterized, and (4) how compensation is treated by taxing authorities.

The ICD-9 system has codes that supply the payor with information regarding both the patient diagnosis and the procedures performed in treating the diagnosis. HIPAA requires all healthcare providers to use the ICD-9 codes when reporting diagnosis information to payors. In addition, HIPAA requires that hospitals use the ICD-9 procedural codes when reporting information to payors detailing the treatment of hospital inpatients.

In early 2009, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a final rule that called for the replacement of the current ICD-9 code set used to report healthcare diagnoses and procedures with the ICD-10 code set by October 1, 2013. The adoption of the new system offers several benefits, including the facilitation of quality data reporting, support for pay for performance payment methodologies, improved billing accuracy, and allowances for international comparison of the incidence and spread of disease.

Through the bloodstream.

An exempt organization is organized or operated for the benefit of private interests. The IRS has stated that “[n]o part of the net earnings of a section 501(c)(3) organization may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual[, whereby] a private shareholder or individual
is a person having a personal and private interest in the activities of the organization.”