Glossary

The calculation to determine the reasonable cost incurred by individual providers when furnishing covered services to beneficiaries. The reasonable cost is based on the actual cost of providing such services, including direct and indirect costs of providers, and excluding any costs that are unnecessary in the efficient delivery of services covered by a health insurance program.

An individual covered by the Medicaid program, however, now referred to as a beneficiary.

The recovery by Medicare of any Medicare debt by reducing present or future Medicare payments and applying the amount withheld to the indebtedness.

A written OK from your primary care doctor for you to see a specialist or get certain services. In many Medicare Managed Care Plans, you need to get a referral before you can get care from anyone except your primary care doctor. If you don’t get a referral first, the plan may not pay for your care.

A plan may restrict certain health care services to an enrollee unless the enrollee receives areferral from a plan-approved caregiver, on paper, referring them to a specific place/person forthe service. Generally, a referral is defined as an actual document obtained from a provider inorder for the beneficiary to receive additional services.

Means any specialty, inpatient, outpatient or laboratory services that are ordered or arranged, but not furnished directly. Certain situations may exist that should be considered referral services for purposes of determining if a physician/group is at substantial financial risk. For example, an MCO may require a physician group/physician to authorize "retroactive" referrals for emergency care received outside the MCO's network. If the physician group/physician's payment from the MCO can be affected by the utilization of emergency care, such as a bonus if emergency referrals are low, then these emergency services are considered referral services and need to be included in the calculation of substantial financial risk. Also, if a physician group contracts with an individual physician or another group to provide services that the initial group cannot provide itself, any services referred to the contracted physician group/physician should be considered referral services.

A research foundation for improving health care by optimizing the capture, analysis, content, and delivery of health care information. Regenstrief maintains the LOINC coding system that is being considered for use as part of the HIPAA claim attachments standard.

A private company that contracts with Medicare to pay home health bills and check on the quality of home health care.

CMS has 10 Ros that work closely together with Medicare contractors in their assigned geographical areas on a day-to-day basis. Four of these Ros monitor Network contractor performance, negotiate contractor budgets, distribute administrative monies to contractors, work with contractors when corrective actions are needed, and provide a variety of other liaison services to the contractors in their respective regions.

Rehabilitative services are ordered by your doctor to help you recover from an illness or injury. These services are given by nurses and physical, occupational, and speech therapists. Examples include working with a physical therapist to help you walk and with an occupational therapist to help you get dressed.