Author: AHIMA Staff

Source: AHIMA Q and A

Publication Date: May 02, 2002

Q: Is there a standard or recommended source for abbreviations used in medical records?


A: There is no standard or recommended abbreviation list. Because of service and style variation, healthcare organizations are encouraged to create their own customized list. An optimal approach....

Author: AHIMA Staff

Source: AHIMA Q and A

Publication Date: November 02, 2001

Q: Where can I find an easy-to-use glossary for terms in the HIPAA regulations?


A: The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) has compiled an alphabetic glossary of HIPAA terms and definitions. It is approximately 24 pages long and can be downloaded from the WEDI Web sit....

Author: Prophet, Sue

Source: Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: November 2000

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) presents numerous challenges to HIM processes and systems. Not least among these areas is coding. Among the concerns is whether the CPT system will be sufficient to meet the demands of HIPAA. The American Med....

Author: AHIMA Professional Practice Team

Source: AHIMA Q and A

Publication Date: November 02, 2000

Q: My facility wants to adopt or modify an existing abbreviation list rather than develop its own. Where can I locate such a list?
A: If you work in a community where the physicians practice at more than one facility, it would be ideal if those facilities shared a common abbreviation....

Author: AHIMA Professional Practice Team

Source: AHIMA Q and A

Publication Date: July 02, 2000

Q: What is a good source for looking up Internet-related terms?
A: One of the quickest and least expensive ways to look up an unfamiliar Internet term is by doing a search at www.whatis.com.

In addition to explaining terms such as "cookie" and "ISP," ....

Author: Rulon, Vera

Source: Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: January 2000

What will facilitate medical product regulation and related electronic data interchange worldwide? For some regulatory authorities, the answer is the Medical Dictionary for Drug Regulatory Affairs—also known as MedDRA.

MedDRA (the name is a trademark of the International Federat....

Author: Fletcher, Donna M.

Source: Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: September 1999

From the onset of DRGs in 1983 through today's proliferation of prospective payment systems (PPS) and managed care efforts, the number of terms related to reimbursement has increased significantly. The following are some of those terms and abbreviations, including those r....

Author: AHIMA Staff

Source: AHIMA Q and A

Publication Date: January 02, 1999

Q: I hear a lot of technical terms being used lately by information systems staff and I feel like I'm not speaking their "jargon." Could you clarify the meaning of some of these terms? Specifically, they are SQL, Java, TCP/IP, and IPX.

A: SQL stands for structured query language, whi....

Author: Humphreys, Betsy L.

Source: Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: May 1998

A 1996-97 study conducted by the National Library of Medicine and the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research aimed to determine how well existing vocabularies cover the concepts and terms needed in health information systems. The author describes the hypothesis underlying the s....

Author: Harding, Ann; Stuart-Buttle, Charlie

Source: Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: May 1998

Produced and maintained by Britain's National Health Service, the Read Codes are a comprehensive, controlled clinical vocabulary. Here's a look at how the codes evolved, their use in the NHS, and the continual process of aligning the system with the needs of its users.
<....