HCAD 760 MIDTERM 2026 STUDY GUIDE
COMPLETE HEALTHCARE ADMINISTRATION
CONCEPTS AND PRACTICE QUESTIONS
◉ customer friendly. Answer: A practice that focuses on making the
experience both useful and free of hassles for the patient as a
consumer of healthcare.
◉ fee for service system. Answer: A billing system in which a health
care provider charges a patient a set amount for each individual
service provided.
◉ health care delivery. Answer: The provision of preventive,
treatment, or rehabilitative health services, from short term to long
term, to individuals as well as groups of people, by individual
practitioners, institutions, or public health agencies.
◉ health maintenance. Answer: Providing screening and prevention
services that can keep people from becoming ill and identifying
illnesses early when they might be easier to treat.
◉ health system. Answer: Organizations that operate multiple
service units under single ownership.
,◉ Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Answer: The 2010
health reform act that could extend insurance coverage to as many
as 32 million Americans. The law also included regulations that
affect the quality of coverage insurers must offer. Additionally, the
law created a range of initiatives focused on encouraging reform in
how medical care is organized and delivered, with a goal of reducing
costs and improving quality and outcomes. Finally, other aspects of
the law provided funding for expanded primary care capacity and a
wide range of other health system improvements. This law is often
referred to as Obamacare.
◉ population health. Answer: The health outcomes of a group of
people and the distribution of outcomes within that group. The field
of population health assesses how patterns of health determinants
affect health outcomes and develops policies and interventions that
link these areas.
◉ stakeholders. Answer: Persons with an interest in the
performance of an organization. Examples of hospital stakeholders
are physicians and nurses, payers, managers, patients, and
government.
◉ value. Answer: Health care that is measured by the outcomes
achieved instead of the amount of services delivered.
◉ workforce. Answer: The people engaged in or available for work
in a particular industry, such as health care
, ◉ academic health center. Answer: An allopathic or osteopathic
medical school, one or more health professions schools (e.g., allied
health, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, public health, veterinary
medicine), and one or more owned or affiliated teaching hospitals or
health systems.
◉ accountable care organizations (ACOs). Answer: An entity—
usually a hospital or a physician group—that accepts responsibility
for the medical care of a population of people. An insurer or
government payer develops some form of financial incentives to
motivate the ACO to ensure that health care cost patterns for the
covered group are better than the patterns for comparable people
not in the group. First initiated by the Medicare program, various
versions of the ACO idea are being tried by a range of payers.
◉ accreditation. Answer: A decision made by a recognized
organization that an institution substantially meets appropriate
standards.
◉ ambulatory care. Answer: Health care services that patients
receive when they are not an inpatient or home in bed.
◉ average length of stay (ALOS). Answer: The average number of
days a patient admitted to a hospital stays there as a patient.
COMPLETE HEALTHCARE ADMINISTRATION
CONCEPTS AND PRACTICE QUESTIONS
◉ customer friendly. Answer: A practice that focuses on making the
experience both useful and free of hassles for the patient as a
consumer of healthcare.
◉ fee for service system. Answer: A billing system in which a health
care provider charges a patient a set amount for each individual
service provided.
◉ health care delivery. Answer: The provision of preventive,
treatment, or rehabilitative health services, from short term to long
term, to individuals as well as groups of people, by individual
practitioners, institutions, or public health agencies.
◉ health maintenance. Answer: Providing screening and prevention
services that can keep people from becoming ill and identifying
illnesses early when they might be easier to treat.
◉ health system. Answer: Organizations that operate multiple
service units under single ownership.
,◉ Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Answer: The 2010
health reform act that could extend insurance coverage to as many
as 32 million Americans. The law also included regulations that
affect the quality of coverage insurers must offer. Additionally, the
law created a range of initiatives focused on encouraging reform in
how medical care is organized and delivered, with a goal of reducing
costs and improving quality and outcomes. Finally, other aspects of
the law provided funding for expanded primary care capacity and a
wide range of other health system improvements. This law is often
referred to as Obamacare.
◉ population health. Answer: The health outcomes of a group of
people and the distribution of outcomes within that group. The field
of population health assesses how patterns of health determinants
affect health outcomes and develops policies and interventions that
link these areas.
◉ stakeholders. Answer: Persons with an interest in the
performance of an organization. Examples of hospital stakeholders
are physicians and nurses, payers, managers, patients, and
government.
◉ value. Answer: Health care that is measured by the outcomes
achieved instead of the amount of services delivered.
◉ workforce. Answer: The people engaged in or available for work
in a particular industry, such as health care
, ◉ academic health center. Answer: An allopathic or osteopathic
medical school, one or more health professions schools (e.g., allied
health, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, public health, veterinary
medicine), and one or more owned or affiliated teaching hospitals or
health systems.
◉ accountable care organizations (ACOs). Answer: An entity—
usually a hospital or a physician group—that accepts responsibility
for the medical care of a population of people. An insurer or
government payer develops some form of financial incentives to
motivate the ACO to ensure that health care cost patterns for the
covered group are better than the patterns for comparable people
not in the group. First initiated by the Medicare program, various
versions of the ACO idea are being tried by a range of payers.
◉ accreditation. Answer: A decision made by a recognized
organization that an institution substantially meets appropriate
standards.
◉ ambulatory care. Answer: Health care services that patients
receive when they are not an inpatient or home in bed.
◉ average length of stay (ALOS). Answer: The average number of
days a patient admitted to a hospital stays there as a patient.
