Scott MacStravic, Ph.D.
I have long wondered at the persistence in the use of the term “reimbursement” to describe the moneys that payers dispense to providers in health care. One rarely hears of consumers “reimbursing” providers – there the older, simpler and more accurate term “payment” is usually applied. But how long has it been since commercial health insurance plans, CMS and other third-parties have “paid back” providers for the expenses they incur in delivering care?
Dictionaries may still use the traditional definition of “reimbursement,” meaning the paying back for expenses incurred, as when employers pay employees for travel expenses, or insurers pay back insured clients for rebuilding, repair or other covered expenses. And certainly third parties paid payers based on their costs for a long time, though that practice has hardly or barely survived as the general mode for deciding how much to disburse.
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