Key Acronyms
- ACO – Accountable Care Organization
- ANPRM – Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
- API – Application Programming Interface
- ARRA – American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
- ASC – Ambulatory Surgical Center
- ASP – Application Service Provider
- ATCB – Authorized Testing and Certification Body
- ATLs – Accredited Testing Laboratories
- ATNA – Audit Trail and Node Authentication
- BHIE – Bidirectional Health Information Exchange
- BYOD – Bring Your Own Device
- BYOP – Bring Your Own Phone
- BYOPC – Bring Your Own PC
- BYOT – Bring Your Own Technology
- CAH – Critical Access Hospital
- CBO – Community-Based Organization
- CCD - Continuity of Care Document (CCR + CDA became CCD)
- CCHIT – Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology
- CCN – CMS Certification Number
- CCR – Continuity of Care Record
- CDA – Clinical Document Architecture
- CDO – care delivery organization
- CEHRT – Certified Electronic Health Record Technology
- CDR – Clinical Data Repository
- CDS – clinical decision support
- CDSS – clinical decision support system
- CFR – Code of Federal Regulations
- CHC – Connected Healthcare Community
- CHIPRA – Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act
- CHPL – Certified Health IT Product List
- CHR – Community Health Records
- CLIA – Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments
- CIO – Chief Information Officer
- CMIO – Chief Medical Information/Informatics Officer
- CMV – Controlled Medical Vocabulary
- CPOE – Computerized physician order entry
- CPT - Current Procedural Terminology
- CQM – Cinical Quality Measure
- CTE – Conditions for Trusted Exchange
- CY / FY -Calendar Year / Fiscal Year (Federal)
- DBE – Documenting by exception
- DOB – Date of Birth
- ED – Emergency Department
- EH – Eligible Hospital
- eMAR – Electronic Medication Administration Record
- EMR/EHR – electronic medical/health record
- EP – Eligible Professional
- eRx – Electronic Transmission of Prescriptions (ePrescribing)
- FACA – Federal Advisory Committee Act
- FFS – Fee-For-Service
- FHA - Federal Health Architecture
- FIPS – Federal Information Processing Standards
- FOA – Funding Opportunity Announcement
- FOSS – Free and Open Source/Solutions Software
- FQHC – Federally Qualified Health Center
- FTP – File Transport Protocol
- GPRO – Group Practice Reporting Option
- HIE – Health Information Exchanges
- HIM – Health Information Management
- HIO – Health Information Organization
- HIQR – Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting
- HIPAA - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
- HIT – Health Information Technology
- HITECH – Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act
- HIQR – Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting
- HIX – Health Insurance Exchange
- HL7 - Health Level 7
- HPSA – Health Professional Shortage Areas
- ICE – Integrated Community EHR
- IFR – Interim Final Rule
- IPPS – Inpatient Prospective Payment System
- IT – Information Technology
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LOINC - Logical Observations Identifiers, Names, Codes
-
MA – Medicare Advantage
-
MCMP –Medicare Care Management Performance Demonstration
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MITA - Medicaid Information Technology Architecture
- MU – Meaningful Use
- NCVHS –National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics
- NwHIN - Nationwide Health Information Network
- NP – Nurse Practitioner
- NPI –National Provider Identifier
- NPRM – Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
- NLP – Natural Language Processing
- NPPES - National Plan and Provider Emumeration System
- NVLAP - National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program
- OCPO - Office of the Chief Privacy Officer
- OMB –Office of Management and Budget
- ONC - Office of the National Coordinator (preferred abbreviation for ONCHIT)
- ONC-AA – ONC-Approved Accreditor
- ONC-ACB – ONC-Authorized Certification Body
- ONC-ATCB – ONC Authorized Testing and Certification Body
- ONCHIT - Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
- PA –Physician Assistant
- PACS – picture archiving and communication systems
- PCHR – Personally Controlled Health Record
- PCMH – Patient-Centered Medical Home
- PECOS –Provider Enrollment, Chain, and Ownership System
- PGHD – Patient-Generated Health Data
- PHA – Public Health Agency
- PHI – Personal Health Information or Protected Health Information
- PHR – Personal Health Record
- PHSA – Public Health Service Act
- PMS – Practice Management System
- POS – Place of Service
- PPACA - Patient Portability and Affordable Care Act
- PPS –Prospective Payment System (Medicare Part A)
- PQRI – Physician Quality Reporting Initiative
- PQRS – Physician Quality Reporting System
- QRDA - Quality Reporting Document Architecture
- REC – Regional Extension Center
- RHC –Rural Health Clinic
- RHIO – Regional Health Information Organizations
- RHQDAPU –Reporting Hospital Quality Data for Annual Payment Update
- SaaS – Software-as-a-Service product
- SDO – Standards Development Organization
- SMHP – State Medicaid Health Information Plan
- SMTP – Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
- SNOMED CT – Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine — Clinical Terms
- SOAP – Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan
- TIN –Taxpayer Identification Number
- UCD - User-Centered Design
- UNII Unique Ingredient Identifier
- UCUM – Unified Code for Units of Measure
- USB – Universal Serial Bus
- VA – Veterans Affairs
- VLER – Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record (used by VA)
- VNA – Vendor Neutral Archive
- XMS – Extensible Markup Language
- AAAAI – American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology
- AAHAM - American Association of Healthcare Administrative Management
- AAMI - Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation
- AAPC - American Academy of Professional Coders
- ACC – American College of Cardiology
- ACRO – Association of Clinical Research Organizations
- AHA - American Hospital Association
- AHDI - Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity
- AHIC – American Health Information Community (Now NeHC)
- AHIMA – The American Health Information Management Association
- AHRQ – Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
- AMDIS - Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems
- AMIA – American Medical Informatics Association
- AMSPAR - The Association of Medical Secretaries, Practice Managers, Administrators and Receptionists
- ANI – Alliance for Nursing Informatics
- ANSI – American National Standards Institute
- ASHHRA - American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration
- ASTM - ASTM International – originally known as the American Society for Testing and Materials
- CAQH - Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare
- CCHIT – Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology
- CDC - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- CHIME - College of Healthcare Information Management Executives
- CMS – Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services
- DMAA - Disease Management Association of America (now Care Continuum Alliance)
- EHRA - Electronic Health Record Association (of HIMSS)
- EHNAC - Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission
- EHRVA - Electronic Health Record Vendors Association
- FDA - Food and Drug Administration
- HBMA – Healthcare Billing and Management Association
- HIMSS - Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society
- HISPC - Health Information Security and Privacy Collaboration
- HITRC - National Health IT Research Center
- HITSP – Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel
- HHS – Department of Health and Human Services (link to recovery site)
- HRSA - Health Resources and Services Administration (under HHS)
- IHI - Institute for Healthcare Improvement
- IHTSDO – International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization
- IPA – Independent Practice Association
- ISDS - International Society for Disease Surveillance
- JCAHO - The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations
- MGMA - Medical Group Management Association
- MSO – Medical (or Management) Service Organization
- MTIA - Medical Transcription Industry Association
- MTSO – Medical Transcription Service Organization
- NAHAM – National Association of Healthcare Access Management
- NAHIT – National Alliance for Health Information Technology (Ceasing operation on 9/30/09)
- NASCIO – National Association of State Chief Information Officers
- NCPDP - National Counsil for Prescription Drug Programs
- NCQA – National Committee for Quality Assurance
- NCVHS - National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics
- NeHC – National eHealth Collaborative
- NHMA - National Hispanic Medical Association
- NIST - National Institute of Standards and Technology
- NQF - National Quality Forum
- OCR – Office of Civil Rights (Dept of Health and Human Services)
- OESS - Office of E-Health Standards and Servies (under CMS)
- PAHCOM – Professional Association of Health Care Office Management
- PCAST - President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
- PHDSC - Public Health Data Standards Consortium
- PHO – Physician Hospital Organization
- SHIRE – Summit Health Institute for Research and Education, Inc.
- TCBI – The Center for Business Innovation
- TIPAAA - The IPA Association of America
- WEDI - Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange






October 1, 2014, the health care industry will adopt the ICD-10 code set. While you should prepare for this transition, your medical billing, practice management and EHR vendor should be working hard right now with you to adapt your system. 









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