Healthcare Buzzwords

Are you familiar with all of the healthcare buzzwords? Every time I turn around, new ones are happening. ‘Im not just talking about acronyms, I’m talking about buzz words. Let me give you a quick run down on some of my favorites.

Most Common Healthcare Buzzwords

1. Obamacare – What exactly is it? It is officially named the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and is a national health care plan aimed at reforming the American health care system. It contains reforms for cutting healthcare costs, makes coverage improvements, allows patients with preexisting conditions to be covered, and helps individuals get health insurance through Medicaid expansion.

2. Affordable Care Act – This is also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and informally as Obamacare, was signed into law by President Barack Obama on 23rd March, 2010. The aim of the Act is a health care law aimed at improving the health care system of the United States by widening health coverage to more Americans, as well as protecting existing health insurance policy holders.

3. Meaningful Use – this means using a certified electronic health record to improve quality, safety and efficiency in treating patients. There is certain criteria to meet in order to become a “meaningful user”, and if you do, you can receive incentives from the government in the form of cash payments.

4. HIPAA – this is probably the most popular of the healthcare buzzwords. So what is it? Long story, or short? In 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or the HIPAA was endorsed by the U.S. Congress. The HIPAA Privacy Rule, also called the Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information, provided the first nationally-recognizable regulations for the use/disclosure of an patients health information. I can go on and on about this, but I will just sum it up with saying that is governs the patients privacy laws.

5. DICOM – This one of off the beaten path a little, but you hear it all the time. It stands for Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine. It is the standard fro handling, storing and transmitting information in medical imaging, such as CT scans, Echo’s, X-rays and more. It’s basically the standard for handling your diagnostic testing.

These are just a few healthcare buzzwords that you may or may not have heard of. For those of us in the industry, we heard them every day. Even if we don’t want to ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Healthcare Buzzwords