Glossary of Healthcare Terms

Managed care plans integrate the financing (i.e. insurance) and provision of health services under the administration of one organization in an effort to contain costs.

An organization that provides managed healthcare services.

Consulting services in the improvement of practice efficiency and efficacy.

In this model, physicians remain separate as independent legal entities who contract for services from the bureau at fair market value.

A corporation owned by the hospital, or by a physician-hospital joint venture, that provides management services to one or more medical group practices.

A legal entity owned by physicians, hospitals, or lay investors that provides an array of practice management services.

The MSO typically establishes a separate legal entity that equally shares responsibility for establishing and operating the entity between physicians and the hospital. Typically, an MSO is not licensed to practice medicine.

A varied combination of health care products, goods, and services.

An index of the annual change in the prices of goods and services providers used to produce health or other goods and services. There are separate market baskets for prospective payment systems (PPSs), hospital operating inputs and capital inputs, and skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), and outpatient services and facilities.

The market value of a company

Includes advertising; franchise/licensing agreements; and joint ventures/alliances.

It enhances muscle and tissue function by manipulating these tissues while promoting relaxation.

A measure of central tendency that establishes the value of a data set with an equal number of greater and lesser values within the dataset and is resistant to the effects of outliers.

Medicaid is a means-tested, state administered health insurance program for individuals below certain income thresholds predetermined by the state in which they reside. The federal government establishes coverage requirement guidelines for the categorically needy (e.g., children, pregnant women); medically needy (e.g., individuals with income above the threshold, but who have a large amount of medical bills); and, special groups. Although the federal government determines the medical services that will be covered and paid for by the federal portion of the program, Medicaid programs vary widely from state to state as the state governments are free to add additional services or expand eligibility to additional groups.

"[A] standardized, multiple-choice examination designed to assess the examinee