Health Insurance A mechanism to spread the risk of unforeseen expenditures across a broad base to protect the individual from personal expenditures for health care services. Health insurance may be purchased individually or on a group basis. It may be custom designed to cover specific services and procedures and include requirements to control the level of use and payment for these services. An employee health insurance benefit is a nontaxable form of compensation to the employee in lieu of taxable salary or wages, provided through employment.
Various types of insurance, such as accident, disability income, medical expense, dental, vision, hearing, and accidental death and dismemberment may be made available through employment. Benefits may be available to dependents of active employees, retirees, spouses, survivors, and dependents through employment. Benefits for classes of active and retired employees and their dependents need not be uniform. The employer may purchase benefits or the costs may be shared between the employer and employee.
Home Care In contrast with inpatient and ambulatory care, home care is medical care ordinarily administered in the house setting when a patient is not sufficiently ambulatory to make frequent office or hospital visits. With these patients, intravenous therapy for example is administered at the patient's residence, usually by a health care professional. Home care reduces the need for hospitalization and it's associated costs.
Home Health Services performed at an individual's home including a wide range of skilled and non-skilled services, including part-time nursing care, various types of therapy, assistance with activities of daily living and homemaker services such as cleaning and meal preparation. For Medicare purpose, this term refers specifically to intermittent, physician-ordered medical services or treatment.
Hospice A facility or program that is licensed, certified or otherwise authorized by law, which provides supportive care of the terminally ill.
Hospice Care Care that address the physical, spiritual, emotional, psychological, financial, and legal needs of the dying patient and the family; provided by an interdisciplinary team of professionals and perhaps volunteers in a variety of settings, including hospitals, freestanding facilities, and at home.
Hospital An institution whose primary function is to provide inpatient diagnostic and therapeutic services for a variety of medical conditions, both surgical and non-surgical. In addition, most hospitals provide some outpatient services, particularly emergency care. Hospitals may be classified by length of stay (short-term or long-term), as teaching or non-teaching, by major types of services (psychiatric, tuberculosis, general, and other specialties, such as maternity, pediatric, or ear, nose and throat), and by type of ownership or control (Federal, State, or local government; for-profit and non-profit).