Glossary of Healthcare Terms

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Clearinghouses

Companies that assesses provider claims for errors and securely forwards the bill to the correct payor.

Clients

Targets whose preliminary proposal is negotiated to an engagement agreement (contract) are considered clients.

Clinical Benchmarking

A type of benchmarking, often dependent upon the level of investment and multidisciplinary efforts across several levels of care, is utilized for continuous development and maintenance of quality healthcare, attaining targeted patient-focused outcomes, and identifying evidence-based benchmarks for best practices, among other clinical outcomes.

Clinical Decision Support (CDS)

Clinical decision support is a technology that provides clinicians with real-time feedback about a wide-range of diagnostic and treatment related information as they are entering electronic orders.

Clinical Laboratory

Services provided at these sites involve the collection and examination of bodily materials for the purposes of diagnosing, preventing, treating and assessing an illness or condition.

Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNSs)

CNSs are APRNs who demonstrate expertise in the provision of highly specialized patient care and consult.

Clinical Psychology

The scientific study and application of psychology in order to understand, prevent, and alleviate psychologically caused distress or dysfunction (disability) and promote a patient's well being and personal development.

Clinical Quality Indicators

Benchmarking metrics used to measure any clinical outcome or patient treatment. Three types of indicators fall under the umbrella of clinical quality indicators (1) generic indicators, (2) disease-specific indicators, and (3) functional indicators.

Co-Management Arrangements

A Co-Management Arrangement is formed between a hospital and a group of physicians for the purpose of the physicians providing “co-management” services for a portion of the hospital’s business, typically a service line related to the specialty of the participating physicians.


Coding

The process of using the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification and the Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System to assign a numeric value to medical diagnoses, procedures and surgery, signs and symptoms of disease and ill-defined conditions, poisoning and adverse effects of drugs, and complications of surgery and medical care.

Cognitive-Behavior Therapy

A type of psychotherapy focused on the influence of thought on feelings and actions.

Collaborative Benchmarking

A rapidly growing form of benchmarking distinguished by its development of an atmosphere that facilitates learning and sharing of knowledge.

Commercial Reasonableness

The Department of Health and Human Services has interpreted commercially reasonable to mean that an arrangement appears to be "a sensible, prudent business agreement, from the perspective of the particular parties involved, even in the absence of any potential referrals."

Commercially Directed Health Plans

Lets beneficiaries pay for regular healthcare services using health savings accounts or health reimbursement accounts. Implementing these pre-tax savings accounts into healthcare plans allow patients (or rather, consumers) to evaluate and make decisions regarding their healthcare.

Community Orientation

The criteria for classifying healthcare organizations comprised of a company's mission statement, health status indica¬tors, and methods of assessment. 

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