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ID card or identification card - Card given to insured individuals who advise medical providers that a patient is covered by a particular health insurance plan.

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Incentives - Profit sharing arrangements accessible by HMOs and managed care plans that permit hospitals, providers, subcontractors and physicians to divide in amounts earned from plan savings through reduced hospital and specialty referral usage. Normally, clinicians concerned in profit-sharing will increase personal income or profit by reducing the quantity of care, supplies or services provided to patients.

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Incidence - In epidemiology, the number of cases of sickness, infection, or some other event having their onset during a arranged period of time in relation to the unit of population in which they occur. Incidence measures morbidity or other events as they occur over a period of time. Examples comprise the number of accidents occurring in a manufacturing plant during a year in relation to the number of employees in the plant, or the number of cases of mumps occurring in a school during a month in relation to the number of pupils enrolled in the school.

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Incorporation by Reference - The method of building a document a part of a contract by referring to it in the body of the contract.

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Incurred But Not Reported (IBNR) - Refers to a financial accounting of all services that have been performed but, an effect of a short period of time, have not been invoiced or recorded. Refers to claims that reproduce services already delivered, but, for whatever reason, have not yet been reimbursed. Failure to account for these possible claims could lead to some very bad decisions. Good managerial operations have fairly sophisticated mathematical models to estimate this amount at any given time.

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Indemnity - Health insurance benefits provided in the type of cash payments rather than services. Insurance plan in which covered person is reimbursed for covered expenses. An indemnity insurance contract frequently defines the maximum amounts that will be paid for covered services. Indemnity insurance plans may have a PPO option, UR and case management features, or comprise a network or other preferred provider restrictions, but will not have an HMO plan.

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Indemnity Carrier - Usually an insurance company or insurance group that provides advertising, management, claims payment and review, and agrees to assume risk for its subscribers at some pre-determined rate.

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Indemnity Insurance Plans - Traditional insurance plans (not HMOs or PPOs) which permit insured individuals to choose their doctors and hospitals. Insured individuals do not have to choose doctors or hospitals from a specific list of providers.

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Indemnity Wraparound Policy - An out-of-plan product that an HMO offers throughout an agreement with an insurance company.

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Indemnity Plan (Indemnity health insurance) - A plan that reimburses physicians for services performed, or beneficiary for medical expenses incurred. Such plans are contrasted with group health plans, which provide service benefits through group medical observe.

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Independent External Review - An appeal evaluate that is conducted by a third party that is not associated with the health plan or a providers' association and has no conflict of interest or chance in the outcome of the review.

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Independent Practice Association (IPA) or Organization (IPO) - The liberation model in which the HMO contracts with a physician organization, which in turn contracts with individual physicians. The IPA physicians practice in their own offices and persist to also see their FFS patients.

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Indirectly Identifiable Health Information - Data that do not comprise personal identifiers, but link the identifying information to the data through use of a code. These data are still measured identifiable by the HIPAA Common Rule.

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Individually Identifiable Health Information - A term used in healthcare to clarify a subset of health information that identifies the individual or can sensibly be used to identify the individual. State and Federal confidentiality laws as well as HIPAA have standards and rules concerning the protection of individually identifiable health information of patients.

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Individual Market - A market segment collected of customers not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid who are covered under an individual contract for health coverage.

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Individual Plans - A type of insurance plan for individuals and their dependents that are not eligible for coverage through employer group coverage.

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Individual Stop-Loss Coverage - A type of stop-loss insurance that provides benefits for claims on an individual that go beyond a stated amount in a given period.

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Individual (Independent) Practice Association (IPA) - An organized form of prepaid medical practice in which participating physicians stay in their independent office settings, seeing both enrollees of the IPA and private-pay patients. Participating physicians may be reimbursed by the IPA on a fee-for-service foundation or a capitation basis. Sometimes consideration of as an HMO model in which the HMO contracts with a physician organization that in turn contracts with individual physicians.

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Informed Consent - Refers to requirements that healthcare providers and researchers elucidate the purposes, risks, benefits, confidentiality protections, and other relevant aspects of the provision of medical care, a specific procedure or contribution in medical research. Informed permission is also required for the authorization of release or disclosure of individually identifiable health care information, under HIPAA.

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In-Network - Describes a provider or health care facility which is part of a health plan's network. When applicable, insured individuals usually pay less when using an in-network provider.

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Inpatient Care - Health care given to a registered bed tolerant in a hospital, nursing home, skilled nursing, or other medical or post acute institution.

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In-Plan Services - Services that are covered under the state Medicaid plan and incorporated in the patient's managed care contract and/or are furnished by a participating provider.

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Insolvency - A legal purpose occurring when a managed care plan no longer has the financial reserves or other arrangements to meet its contractual obligations to patients and subcontractors.

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Institutional Review Board (IRB) - A group of medical professionals created together for the purpose of providing peer review to protect the rights of human subjects in medical research and clinical trials. HIPAA privacy regulations require an IRB also to defend the privacy rights of research subjects in specific ways.

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Integrated Delivery System (IDS) or Integrated Services Network (ISN) - Many different, but similar, definitions exist for IDS. IDS, as an entity, do not have to abide by strict regulations, as does an HMO. When IDS offers a health plan, however, it must then tolerate by the requirements of the state and federal government for health plans, insurance companies or HMOs. Without owning a health plan product, IDS will usually abide by the regulations that govern its separate businesses, that is, regulations governing hospitals, clinics and physicians.

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Intensive Care Management - Intensive community services for individuals with stern and persistent mental illness that are designed to improve planning for their service needs. Services contain outreach, evaluation, and support.

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Interface - A means of contact between two computer systems, two software applications or two modules. Real time interface is a key element in healthcare information systems owed to the need to access patient care information and financial information instantaneously and comprehensively. Such real time communication is the key to running health care in a cost effective manner because it provides the necessary decision-making information for clinicians, providers and payers.

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Internal Medicine - Normally, that branch of medicine that is concerned with diseases that do not require surgery, specifically, the study and treatment of internal organs and body systems. It encompasses many subspecialties internists, the doctors who apply internal medicine, often serve as family physicians to supervise general medical care.

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International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM, ICD-10-CM) - This is the universal coding technique used to document the incidence of disease, injury, mortality and illness. A diagnosis and procedure classification system designed to facilitate assortment of uniform and comparable health information.

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Intervention Strategy

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