| Abuse |
General term for physical or mental mistreatment. |
| Abused Child |
A child who has been physically, sexually, or mentally abused. Most states also consider a child who is forced into delinquent activity by a parent or guardian to be abused. |
| Accessory |
A person that helps someone else commit a crime, either before or after the crime. |
| Blind Nailing |
Nails driven into a wall and concealed with putty. |
| Blockbusting |
An illegal and discriminatory practice whereby one person induces another to enter into a real estate transaction from which the first person may benefit financially by representing that a change may occur in the neighborhood with respect to race, sex, religion, color, handicap famial status or ancestry of the occupants. A change possibly resulting in the lowering of the property values, a decline in the quality of schools or an increase in the crime rate. Also called panic selling or panic peddling. |
| Blue Sky Laws |
Regulations on the sale of securities to prevent consumers from investing in fraudulent or high-risk companies without being informed of the risks. |
| Control Group |
In a research study, the group of people who do not receive the treatment being tested. The control group might receive a placebo, a different treatment for the disease, or no treatment at all. |
| Convalescent Care |
Term often used for short-term custodial care and refers to a "recovery" period after an illness or injury when some assistance may be needed that does not require skilled care. |
| Controlled Clinical Trial |
A type of clinical trial comparing the effectiveness of one medication or treatment with the effectiveness of another medication or treatment. In many controlled trials, the other treatment is a placebo (inactive substance) and is considered the "control." |
| Defined Benefit |
Funding mechanisms for pension plans that can also be applied to health benefits. Typical pension approaches include: (1) pegging benefits to a percentage of an employee's average compensation over his/her entire service or over a particular number of years; (2) calculation of a flat monthly payment; (3) setting benefits based upon a definite amount for each year of service, either as a percentage of compensation for each year of service or as a flat dollar amount for each year of service. |
| Defined Contribution Coverage |
A funding mechanism for health benefits whereby employers make a specific dollar contribution toward the cost of insurance coverage for employees, but make no promises about specific benefits to be covered. |
| Dehydration |
A serious condition where your body's loss of fluid is more than your body's intake of fluid |
| Early And Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, And Treatment (epsdt) |
A program which covers screening and diagnostic services to determine physical or mental defects in recipients under age 21, as well as health care and other measures to correct or ameliorate any defects and chronic conditions discovered. |
| Earnings (cms) |
Unless otherwise qualified, all wages from employment and net earnings from self-employment, whether or not taxable or covered. |
| Economic Credentialing |
Hospital practice of determining whether to front physicians admitting privileges based on their ability to generate revenues and/or their cost-effectiveness. |
| Fact Finding Conference |
An informal meeting directed by the EEOC to settle discrimination complaints between an employer and the
plaintiff. |
| Fact-questions Of Fact; Fact Findings |
If something is a question of fact for the ET, it means that the issue is decided on the facts of the particular case as opposed to on the law alone. A fact finding is the ET’s decision on where the truth lies between two conflicting pieces of evidence. |
| Factor Comparison |
A job comparison process involving ranking each individual job by certain selected compensable factors to establish appropriate values to be used in determining pay rates. |
| Going Bare |
The colloquial term used to describe the choice of a provider not to be protected by malpractice or professional liability insurance. Many hospitals prohibit this practice by requiring medical staff members to carry insurance. |
| Governance |
The legal authority and responsibility for the public health system. (PHIP, 1996) |
| Governing Body |
The legal entity ultimately responsible for hospital policy, organization, management, and quality of care. Also called the governing board, board of trustees, commissioners or directors. The governing body is accountable to the owner(s) of the hospital, which may be a corporation, the community,local government or stockholders. |
| Hamate |
The wrist bone in line with the 4th and 5th fingers. |
| Habitual Offender |
A person sentenced under the provisions of a statute declaring that people convicted of a given offense, and shown to have previously been convicted of another specified offense, shall receive a more severe penalty than that for the current offense alone. |
| Hacker |
A computer hobbyist or professional, generally with advanced programming skills. Today, the term hacker has taken on a sinister connotation, referring to hobbyists who are bent on illegally accessing the computers of others or who attempt to demonstrate their technological prowess through computerized acts of vandalism. |
| Independent Practice Association (ipa) |
Organization of physicians who have joined together for purposes of contracting with HMOs, PPOs, or other payers. IPA physicians continue to practice in solo settings or in groups, maintain their offices and regular practices, and usually are reimbursed on a fee-for-service basis. |
| Impairment |
Any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological, or anatomical structure or function from injury or disease. It represents a deviation from the person's usual biomedical state. |
| Implementation Guide |
A document explaining the proper use of a standard for a specific business purpose. The X12N HIPAA IGs are the primary reference documents used by those implementing the associated transactions, and are incorporated into the HIPAA regulations by reference. |
| Juvenile Justice |
The policies and activities of law enforcement and the courts in handling law violations by youths under the age of criminal jurisdiction.29 |
| Juvenile Justice Agency |
A government agency, or subunit thereof, whose functions are the investigation, supervision, adjudication, care, or confinement of juvenile offenders and nonoffenders subject to the jurisdiction of a juvenile court. Also, in some usages, a private agency providing care and treatment. |
| Juvenile Justice System |
Government agencies that function to investigate, supervise, adjudicate, care for, or confine youthful offenders and other children subject to the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. |
| Kinship Adoption |
Describes a legal process in which the child is adopted by a relative, and usually involves a less stringent process to complete the adoption (not to be confused with informal family care). |
| Key Contributor Plan |
Is a performance-based incentive program created for the sole purpose of attracting, motivating and retaining key individuals or small groups. (Pierson and Williams, 1994) |
| Key Rate Duration |
A measure of duration that calculates effective or empirical duration by changing the market rate for one specific maturity point on the yield curve while holding all other variables constant. May be done as part of a series of calculations that separately and sequentially vary the yields for two or more maturity points on the yield curve. Sets of partial durations for multiple points on the same yield curve will sum to a value that is usually close to the overall effective duration. Also known as reshaping duration. Key rate duration is the most common type of partial duration and those terms are often used as synonyms. |
| Life Expectancy |
Average expected length of life for a group of people, of a particular age, chosen at a particular time (for example, for White infants born in 1960). (Vital Signs, 1999). |
| Life-sustaining Treatment |
Medical procedures that replace or support an essential bodily funciton. Life-sustaining treatments include CPR, mechanical ventilation, artificial nutrition and hydration, dialysis, and certain other treatments. |
| Lifetime Maximum Structure (lms) Detail |
The basis on which total benefits paid under the policy are determined in terms of either days or dollars. This refers to whether the policy or certificate counts days on which benefits have been received or whether it counts dollars of benefits paid out in determining when the coverage's lifetime maximum has been met. While the prevailing policy design today is a "pool of dollars" benefit approach, some policies being sold today still count days on which benefits are paid in determining the policy's lifetime maximum. |
| Medical Malpractice |
Improper or negligent treatment of a person under a medical professional's care, which results in injury or death. The most common forms of medical malpractice are an improper diagnosis; sub standard care; lack of informed consent; breach of patient and doctor confidentiality; prescribing harmful drugs; etc. |
| Minor |
A person who is under the age of legal competence. In Washington, a person less than eighteen (18) years old. |
| Misdemeanor |
Criminal offenses less than felonies; generally those punishable by fine or imprisonment of less than 90 days in a local facility. A gross misdemeanor is a criminal offense for which an adult could be sent to jail for up to one year, pay a fine up to $5,000 or both. |
| Negative-slope Driveway |
A driveway that drops from street level to the garage. |
| Neighborhood Center |
This center is designed to provide convenience shopping for the day-to-day needs of consumers in the immediate neighborhood. According to ICSC’s SCORE publication, a supermarket anchors half of these centers, while about a third have a drugstore anchor. Stores offering pharmaceuticals and health-related products, sundries, snacks and personal
services, support these anchors. A neighborhood center is usually configured as a straightline strip with no enclosed walkway or mall area, although a canopy may connect the storefronts. |
| Negligence |
The failure to use ordinary or reasonable care under the circumstances. |
| Owning |
A means of obtaining the full economic use of a property for an unspecified period by obtaining an ownership interest. |
| Opla |
Abbreviation for Office of Patent Legal Administration |
| Oiip |
Abbreviation for Office of Independent Inventors Programs (prior), now part of the Inventors Assistance Center |
| Po Or P/o |
An acronym for principal-only strip. |
| Point |
A unit of measurement for interest rates or yields that is expressed as a percentage. One-hundredth of one percent. One hundred basis points equal one percent. |
| Point Of Sale (pos) |
A location where credit card transactions are performed with the cardholder present, such as a retail store. The card is read magnetically, and the cardholder's signature is obtained as insurance against the transaction. This is the most secure form of credit card commerce. |
| Quality Assurance |
The process used to determine the quality of care, to develop and maintain programs to keep it at an acceptable level and to correct patterns of care that fall below that level. |
| Quality Assurance Reform Initiative (qari) |
Guidelines established by the Federal government for quality assurance in Medicaid managed care plans. |
| Quality Compass |
Quality assessment tool developed by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. |
| Reconveyance |
Relief granted to a debtor by a bankruptcy court. Discharge relieves the debtor from all further responsibility for pre-petition debt covered by the discharge. |
| Record Date |
The date set to determine the owner entitled to the next dividend, interest, or principal payment. The payment is due to the owner who owned the security on the record date. |
| Recourse |
a type of borrowing in which the borrower or lessor is fully at risk to the lender for repayment of the obligation. The recourse borrower or lessor is required to make payments to the lender, whether or not the lessee is fulfilling its lease obligation. |
| Substantial Financial Risk (cms) |
Means an incentive arrangement that places the physician or physician group at risk for amounts beyond the risk threshold, if the risk is based on the use or costs of referral services. The risk threshold is 25%. However, if the patient panel is greater than 25,000 patients, then the physician group is not considered to be at substantial financial risk because the risk is spread over the large number of patients. Stop loss and beneficiary surveys would not be required. |
| Summarized Cost Rate (cms) |
The ratio of the present value of expenditures to the present value of the taxable payroll for the years in a given period. In this context, the expenditures are on an incurred basis and exclude costs for those uninsured persons for whom payments are reimbursed from the general fund of the Treasury, and for voluntary enrollees, who pay a premium in order to be enrolled. The summarized cost rate includes the cost of reaching and maintaining a "target" trust fund level, known as a contingency fund ratio. Because a trust fund level of about 1 year's expenditures is considered to be an adequate reserve for unforeseen contingencies, the targeted contingency fund ratio used in determining summarized cost rates is 100 percent of annual expenditures. Accordingly, the summarized cost rate is equal to the ratio of (1) the sum of the present value of the outgo during the period, plus the present value of the targeted ending trust fund level, plus the beginning trust fund level, to (2) the present value of the taxable payroll during the period. |
| Survival |
The length of time people live. Survival can show whether treatments for a disease can prevent or delay death. Survival is usually expressed in terms of how long the people in a group remain alive. It sometimes is summarized by calculating an average. Survival also can be summarized by the number of people who are still alive after a certain length of time, such as 5 years later. |
| Term Structure Of Interest Rates |
The relationship between interest rates (or yields) for otherwise similar securities with different maturities. Yield curves are graphical depictions of the term structure of interest rates. |
| Termination |
The action taken by a secured party to end or give up its interest in collateral. For personal property collateral, a termination may be entered into the public record by using a standard form called a UCC-3. |
| Terminated Merchant File (tmf) |
Merchants with excessive chargebacks are stripped of their merchant account and the ability to accept credit card orders. The merchant is then placed on the TMF match list that all Merchant Service Providers have access to. Being placed on this file can keep you from obtaining another merchant account for several years. |
| Unconscionable Contract |
A contract with unfair or unduly harsh terms. |
| Undercapatilization |
The condition that exists when a company does not have enough cash to carry on its business and pay its creditors. |
| Underwriter |
a person who signs as party to a contract. Now usually only applied to insurance contracts where the underwriters are those who agree to bear all or part of the risk in return for the premium payments. Underwriters at Lloyd's of London are also known as names. |
| Veterans Administration (va) |
A federal agency that administers programs for US veterans. |
| Virtual Private Network (vpn) |
The use of encryption in the lower protocol layers to provide a secure connection through an otherwise insecure network, typically the Internet. |
| Vocational Adjustment |
Vocational Adjustment involves an interaction of a claimant’s residual functional capacity (RFC) with his or her age, education, and work experience in order to decide whether the claimant can adjust to jobs which he or she may be vocationally qualified to do. |
| Whiplash |
Injury to the neck caused by rapid acceleration or deceleration. Common injuries caused by motor vehicle accidents. |
| Wris |
The carpus. The joint connecting the forearm to the hand. |
| Wnl |
Within normal limits. |
| X12n/sptg4 |
The HIPAA Liaison Special Task Group of the Insurance Subcommittee (N) of X12. This group's responsibilities have been assumed by X12N/TG3/WG3. |
| X12n/tg1 |
The Property & Casualty Task Group (TG1) of the Insurance Subcommittee (N) of X12. |
| X12n/tg2 |
The Health Care Task Group (TG2) of the Insurance Subcommittee (N) of X12. |
| Yield Curve Risk |
The risk to a holder of financial instruments that a change in prevailing interest rates will not affect the prices or yields of the same instruments in exactly equal amounts for each available term. For example, an increase in prevailing interest rates might raise 3-month U.S. Treasury yields by 100 basis points while 6-month U.S. Treasury yields go up by only 85 basis points. (In this example, the change to the yield curve would be described as flattening. If, instead, the 6-month rate had risen by more than the 3-month rate, the change in the yield curve would be described as steepening.) The risk of a nonparallel shift in the yield curve. One of the four primary components of interest rate risk. Sometimes called yield curve twist risk, twist risk, or rotation risk. |
| Yield Curve Slope |
Yield curves also describe the amount of difference between short-term and long-term rates. A yield curve that depicts the customary situation of long-term rates higher than short-term rates is called an upward sloping or positively sloped yield curve. A yield curve depicting the less common occurrence of short-term rates higher than long-term rates is called a downward sloping, negatively sloped, or inverted yield curve. When long-term rates are much higher than short-term rates, the yield curve is steep. When long-term rates are virtually the same as short-term rates, the yield curve is flat. |
| Yield Curve Smoothing |
Also called smoothing. The name for a set of alternative techniques for creating continuous yield curves by connecting the dots between observed. If, for example, we have observed rates for 1, 2, 3, 5 and 10 year maturities, smoothing is the technique used to infer rates for all maturities between those known points. The known points are called "knot points". The simplest smoothing technique is "linear smoothing". The most commonly used technique is "cubic splines". For forward rates, the most accurate method is called "maximum forward rate smoothing". |
| Zoning |
The laws that state how a private user, business, or other entity may use land, including the type and size of buildings or houses that will be allowed on certain lots. Zoning laws are organized by geographic boundaries and may dictate where single-family or multi-family residential, certain categories of business, and/or agriculture may exist in relationship to each other within city limits. Zoning may also address the number of parking spots needed, how close buildings can be to each other or the street, and how much landscaping must be present in certain areas. Zoning is usually controlled (and created) by city or county governments. These governmental entities may grant zoning variances (e.g. allowing fewer parking spaces, or allowing a building to be built closer to the road, etc.) because of a hardship the zoning law causes to the property owner. |
| Zoning |
local laws established to control the uses of land within a particular area. Zoning laws are used to separate residential land from areas of non-residential use, such as industry or businesses. Zoning ordinances include many provisions governing such things as type of structure, setbacks, lot size, and uses of a building. |
| Zoning |
A designation given to a particular geographic area by the local government to regulate the type of use and the density of development permitted for properties in that area. For example, areas may be zoned to allow only residential development. |
