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Hackley Community Care Center
Glossary G-N
Health Information Network (HIN): An electronic system that uses telecommunications devices to link various healthcare entities within a geographic region in order to exchange patient, clinical, and financial information in an effort to reduce costs and practice better medicine.
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA): A federal act that protects people who change jobs, are self-employed, or who have pre-existing medical conditions. HIPAA standardizes an approach to the continuation of healthcare benefits for individuals and members of small group health plans and establishes parity between the benefits extended to these individuals and those benefits offered to employees in large group plans. The act also contains provisions designed to ensure that prospective or current enrollees in a group health plan are not discriminated against based on health status.
Health Maintenance Organization (HMO): A healthcare system that assumes or shares both the financial risks and the delivery risks associated with providing comprehensive medical services to a voluntarily enrolled population in a particular geographic area, usually in return for a fixed, prepaid fee.
M.D. (Medical Doctor): Abbreviation for the Latin title Medicinae Doctor, Doctor of Medicine. Sometimes written today as MD (without the period after each letter).
All medical schools in the United States and Canada award an M.D. degree, usually after 4 years undergraduate study at a college or university followed by 4 years of medical school. (Some medical schools award the M.D. after 3 years of college and/or 3 years of medical school).
Mail-order pharmacy programs:23 Programs that offer drugs ordered and delivered through the mail to plan members at a reduced cost.
Managed care: The integration of both the financing and delivery of healthcare within a system that seeks to manage the accessibility, cost, and quality of that care.
Medicaid: A jointly funded federal and state program that provides hospital expense and medical expense coverage to the low-income population and certain aged and disabled individuals.
Medical savings account (MSA): A trust that employees of small businesses may establish to pay for out-of-pocket medical expenses.
Medically needy individuals: Enrollees in Medicaid programs whose income or assets exceed the maximum threshold for certain federal programs.
Medicare: A federal government hospital expense and medical expense insurance plan primarily for elderly and disabled persons. See also Medicare Part A, Medicare Part B, and Medicare Part C.
Medicare Part A: The part of Medicare that provides basic hospital insurance coverage automatically for most eligible persons. See also Medicare.
Medicare Part B: A voluntary program that is part of Medicare and provides benefits to cover the costs of physicians' services. See also Medicare.
Medicare Part C: The part of Medicare that expands the list of different types of entities allowed to offer health plans to Medicare beneficiaries. Also known as Medicare+Choice. See also Medicare.
Medicare+Choice: See Medicare Part C.
Medicare supplement: A private medical expense insurance plan that supplements Medicare coverage. Also known as a Medigap policy.
MSW (Medical social workers): Provide psychosocial support to people, families, or vulnerable populations so they can cope with chronic, acute, or terminal illnesses. They also advise family caregivers, counsel patients, and help plan for patients’ needs after discharge from hospitals.
Network: The group of physicians, hospitals, and other medical care providers that a specific managed care plan has contracted with to deliver medical services to its members.
23 Mail-order pharmacy programs open formulary
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