Author: Glossary

The estimated monetary value of the services rendered by personnel who receive no monetary compensation or only partial monetary compensation for their services. The term is applied to services rendered by members of religious orders, societies, volunteers, and similar groups.  

To separate high-risk from low-risk employees and “dump” (not insure) the high-risk employees.  

Getting rid of something, for example, to comply with a court order breaking up a monopoly. A corporate sale of a subsidiary corporation is said to be a divestiture.  

A term coming into use as hospitals enter lines of business other than care of the sick and injured in an effort to obtain revenue from a variety of sources and remain solvent. The hospital is typically restructured in the process of diversification, and foundations, holding companies, and the like may result. The new “businesses”…

An undesirable “reward” for undesired behavior. For example, as part of efforts to reduce hospital and physician costs, patients are sometimes required to pay the first dollars for services; this payment may be a deductible, copayment, or coinsurance. The deductibles are a “disincentive” (a negative incentive) to seek the care, and thus an incentive to…

Paying money to take care of an expense or a debt.  

A formal plan for coping with a disaster. An accredited hospital is expected to have both an external disaster plan and an internal disaster plan. Often such plans have basic elements relating to any kind of disaster and dealing with such items as emergency communication, alerting of police and fire departments, mobilization of off-duty personnel,…

A sudden natural or man-made event which causes extensive damage, destruction, or injury, and requires mobilization of emergency health care resources. Examples are fire, flood, earthquake, tornado, collapse of a building, nuclear accident, war, mine cave-in, airplane crash. A natural or man-made occurrence such as a flood, tornado, earthquake, forest fire, bridge or building collapse,…

An agreement between an employer, an HMO, or other health care plan and a health care provider for the provision of health care services to the enrollees.  

The person designated by the governing body to be responsible for management of the medical staff and for carrying out policy for the medical staff as promulgated by the board. Ordinarily the DMA is a physician, and may be nominated by the medical staff. A physician with this title is ordinarily paid. This term is…