Category: D

A proposal by E. Haavi Morreim and others that the “standard of medical care” should be divided into two components: the standard of medical expertise (SME) and the standard of resource use (SRU) in order to distinguish between that which physicians are expected to do for their patients and the resources, monetary and technological, that…

The denial or limitation of the provision of medical care to, or the transfer elsewhere of, patients who are not able to pay or for which the payment method (for example, the prospective payment system (PPS)) does not pay the hospital enough to cover its costs. Laws intended to prevent dumping typically prohibit the transfer of…

A term which usually refers to the patterns of use of drugs by individual physicians and in hospitals. The term “drug utilization” usually occurs in connection with the terms “drug utilization committee” or “drug utilization study,” both of which have to do with efforts to determine whether certain drugs are used appropriately (for example, whether…

Downloading, and its counterpart “uploading”, refer to the transfer of data between two computers. The data, usually in the format of one or more files, is uploaded to or downloaded from the other computer. Either computer may be referred to as being the “local” or the “remote” machine, depending on your location. One of the…

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.