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FOREWORD

Dictionary of Health Insurance and Managed Care

Q: Why do we need the Dictionary of Health Insurance and Managed Care?

And, why do payers, providers, benefits managers, consultants and consumers need a credible and unbiased source of explanations for their health insurance needs and managed care products?

The answer is clear!  Healthcare is the most rapidly changing domestic industry. The revolution occurring in health insurance and managed care delivery is particularly fast. Some might even suggest these machinations were malignant, as many industry segments, professionals and patients suffer because of them. And so, since knowledge is power in times of great flux, codified information protects us all from physical, as well as economic harm.

For example, federal government forecasts reveal that total expenditures on health services will surpass $2 Trillion in 2007, and account for 17% of Gross Domestic Product. As a country, we spend dramatically more total dollars on healthcare, and more as a percent of the economy, than we did two decades ago. Along with these growing expenditures, the government is assuming greater control.

Currently, almost 50% of healthcare costs are under Federal and/or State mandates through Medicare and Medicaid entitlement programs. The recent prescription drug program and implementation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act adds more confusion to medical providers and facilities, insurance agents, health plans and patients.

This tumult occurred so rapidly that we can no longer assume operative definitional stability. The resulting chaos is as expected.  Fortunately, the Dictionary of Health Insurance and Managed Care provides desperately needed nomenclature stability to health insurance policy issues and managed care procedural concerns.

With almost 10,000 definitions, abbreviations, acronyms, and references, the Dictionary is the most comprehensive and authoritarian compendium of its kind, to date. 

Healthcare economist Dr. David Edward Marcinko, and his colleagues at the Institute of Medical Business Advisors, Inc., should be complimented for conceiving and completing this laudable project.

The Dictionary of Health Insurance and Managed Care lifts the fog of confusion surrounding the most contentious topic in the healthcare industrial complex, today.  

My suggestion therefore, is to “read it, refer to it, recommend it, and reap”. 

Michael J. Stahl; PhD
Director, Physician Executive MBA Program
William B. Stokely Distinguished Professor of Business
The University of Tennessee
College of Business Administration
609 Stokely Management Center
Knoxville, TN 37996-0570 USA

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