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Glossary of Medical Terms

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Medical Terms - A

  • Access Control List (ACL) -

  • Accountable Care Organization (ACO) - (formal organizational care delivery and resourcing model that is currently applicable to Medicare patients)

  • Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC) - (Organization which develops standards involving patient safety, quality, value, and measurement of performance.)

  • Accredited Standards Committee of the American Standards Institute (ANSI) (ASC X12N) - protocol for Electronic Standards involving healthcare data

  • Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) - (disease caused by virus which lowers resistance in the human body resulting in an inability to fight disease)

  • Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) - (judge who deals with the interpretation of administrative acts matters and makes decisions/issues rulings based on whether procedures have been followed, and regulations or laws have been violated or complied with)

  • Administrative Simplification Compliance Act (ASCA) -

  • Affiliated Covered Entity (ACE) - (legally separate healthcare organizations that may designate themselves as a single covered entity for purposes of compliance with the Privacy and Security Rule, if all are under common ownership or control)

  • Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) - (Affordable Health Care for America Act (short form name for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)) (referred to as Obamacare) - law enacted in 2010 requiring individuals to obtain health insurance and employers to provide insurance to most employees, while the government was to create health marketplaces where individuals could buy insurance if they needed it)

  • Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) - (federal law prohibiting discrimination in employment based on age)

  • Alternative Payment Model (APM) - (payment model used as part of the Medicare payment system)

  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) - (a public cloud service created and maintained by Amazon that offers computing power, database storage, content delivery, and other functionality which can allow businesses to scale and grow)

  • Ambulatory Payment Classification (APC) - (coding system used for Medicare reimbursement mainly in the U.S.)

  • Ambulatory Patient Group (APG) - (classification system used in outpatient services reimbursement)

  • American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) -

  • American Bankers Association (ABA) - (national trade association of commercial banks in the United States, first organized in 1875)

  • American Bar Association (ABA) - (organization representing practicing attorneys in the United States)

  • American College of Radiology (ACR) - (organization founded in 1923, representing radiologists, which advances the practice and science of radiology, as well as the patient care aspects of radiological care)

  • American Dental Association (ADA) - (organizationn representing dentists in the U.S.)

  • American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) - (organization representing computer information technology (IT) and management professionals in the healthcare industry)

  • American Hospital Association (AHA) - (national organization representing hospitals and health care networks)

  • American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) - (professional organizationn representing practicing Certified Public Accountants in the U.S.)

  • American Medical Association (AMA) - (organization representing practicing physicians in the U.S.)

  • American National Standards Institute (ANSI) - (standards-setting organization, with a focus on software developmennt and computer system operation)

  • American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) - (federal stimulus bill which enacted the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act under Title XIII, which enhanced security-related requirements)

  • Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) - (federal law enacted in 1990, and later amended, which prohibits discrimination based on disability, with provisions relating to employment, access to public entities and transportation, public accomodations, and telecommunications)

  • Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System (AT) - (coding system administered by the World Health Organization (WHO) used to classify therapeutic drugs)

  • Annualized Loss Expectancy (ALE) - (method of calculating loss based on the loss valuation multiplied by the likelihood it will happen)

  • annualized (annual) rate of occurrence (ARO) - (the likely occurrence per year of an incident)

  • Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) - (Federal criminal law prohibiting the payment of "remuneration" for patient referrals or business involving items or services payable by the Federal health care programs (Medicare or Medicaid). Payment for referrals can involve cash, free rent, expensive hotel stays, providing free vacations, paying excessive compensation for medical directorships, or other payments.)

  • Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) - (regional economic forum established in 1989 to promote the Asia-Pacific region)

  • Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Cross-Border Privacy Rules (APEC CBPR) - (regional economic forum established in 1989 to promote the Asia-Pacific region - CBPR - framework which provides standards for protecting personal information transferred across borders)

  • Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) - (organization of computer professionals which, through its Committee on Professional Ethics, created a Code of Professional Conduct)

  • Attributable, Legible, Contemporaneous, Original and Accurate (ALCOA) - (Food and Drug Administration (FDA) model defining how a pharmaceutical company is required to document evidence that good manufacturing processes were followed during drug manufacture)

  • attribute-based access control (ABAC) - (access control model which allows or denies system access based on specific conditions or attributes - method which grants users access rights based on policies that combine attributes)

  • Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) - (structure/system that regulates access to system information by administering policies and monitoring use to ensure that users are authenticated/identified, that they are authorized for a specific use, and that their use is accounted for or monitored)

  • Availability, Integrity, Confidentiality triad (A-I-C) - (alternate term for the C-I-A triad, to avoid confusion with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) - data needs to be available when needed, date needs to be free of corruption or unauthorized changes, data needs to be confidential, or accessible only to authorized users)