Medical Assistant Vocabulary Quiz

Medical Assistant Vocabulary

• Accreditation: Process for recognizing educational programs meeting professional practice standards.
• Ambulatory Care Setting: Health care environment providing outpatient services.
• Competency: Legal qualification or adequacy for specific tasks.
• Compliance: Conformity to official requirements.
• Credentialed: Certifications proving an individual's right to exercise official powers.
• Disposition: Refers to an individual's temperament, character, or personality.
• Litigious: Describes an individual prone to engage in lawsuits.
• Scope of Practice: Defines clinical procedures and activities legally allowed for a profession.

Health Care Organizations

• Health Maintenance Organization (HMO): Managed care operation commonly structured as a for-profit corporation, employing salaried staff.
• Managed Care Operation: Health care delivery system aimed at reducing costs while maintaining access to care.
• Preferred Provider Organization (PPO): Network of providers offering discounts to health care insurance purchasers.

Medical Documentation & Legal Terms

• Pharmacopeia: Comprehensive book detailing drug preparations or a collection of drugs.
• Asepsis: Techniques and strategies to protect against infections caused by pathogens.
• Deposition: Oral testimony under oath, recorded by a court reporter and attended by attorneys.
• Durable Power of Attorney: Legal document allowing one person to act on another’s health care decisions.
• Emancipated Minor: Under-18 individuals financially self-sufficient and independent from parental care.

Legal Protections & Concerns

• HIPAA: Regulations ensuring the confidentiality of patient information.
• Implied Consent: Agreement indicated through actions instead of explicit statements.
• Informed Consent: Patient consent based on understanding risks, benefits, and alternatives of a procedure.
• Malfeasance: Illegal conduct contrary to an official's duties.
• Malpractice: Professional negligence leading to substandard patient care.
• Litigation: Process of taking legal action in court.

Ethical Considerations & Resource Allocation

• Ethics: Standards of moral conduct, often defined by professional codes.
• Macroallocation: Resource allocation decisions made by legislative or agency authorities regarding scarce medical resources.

Health Records

• EMR: Patient medical records maintained by a single health care practice.
• EHR: Integrated patient records compiled from multiple sources.
• POMR: System using numbered medical problems for organized record-keeping.
• SOMR: Record-keeping method categorizing information by its source.
• SOAP Notes: Format for patient progress notes based on subjective and objective evidence, assessment, and plans.

Scheduling & Patient Management

• Tickler: Reminder system for scheduled actions or duties.
• Purging: Process of organizing files by separating active from inactive records.
• Out Guide: Temporary marker for locating removed files.
• Cross Reference: Notation directing to related records filed under different subjects.
• Appointment Scheduling Methods: Includes matrix, stream scheduling, wave scheduling, and modified wave scheduling.

Communication & Documentation Standards

• Agenda: Outline of topics for discussion in a meeting.
• Blind Copy: Email feature maintaining recipient privacy.
• Form Letter: Standardized letter sent to multiple individuals.
• Full Block Letter: Business letter style where all lines align to the left.
• Memo: Informal internal communication format.
• Proofread: The act of reviewing a document for accuracy in content and language.
• Watermark: Design visible through paper when held to the light, indicating authenticity.
• ZIP+4: Extended zip code increasing mail processing efficiency.
• Keyed: Refers to documents that are typed.
• Minutes: Recorded outline of meeting discussions and decisions.

Optical Character Recognition

• OCR: Technology used by the postal service to read and process addresses on mail, generating matching barcodes for efficient handling.