Number of hospital beds that are licensed and certified and capable of operating. This includes space, equipment, medical material, and ancillary and support services, but staff may not be available. Licensed beds equal the total of operating beds and set-up beds.
Insurance Encyclopedia
Beginning balance
Account balance at the beginning of a period that is an amount owed on a credit transaction. It is also known as account balance carried forward , running balance , or outstanding or unpaid balance .
Behavior health care
Examination and treatment of mental health, chemical dependency, forensic, mental retardation, developmental disabilities, and cognitive rehabilitation services provided in acute, long-term, and ambulatory care settings. Also called behavioral health care .
Behavioral health care
See: behavior health care .
Belly Cargo
Freight accommodation below the main desk.
Bench error
A mistake in the production process of a product that causes a loss. Such losses are usually covered.
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A term used in Product Insurance policies which describes a loss that occurs in the production process. For instance, if production workers mistakenly used the wrong ingredients in a chemical formula, a bench error has occurred. Bench errors are covered.
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UK: Product liability term describing an error or omission that occurs during manufacture or assembly. The risk of such errors underlies much of the demand product liability cover.
Benchmark
Sustained superior performance by a medical care provider, which can be used as a reference to raise the mainstream of care for Medicare beneficiaries. The relative definition of superior will vary from situation to situation. In many instances, an appropriate benchmark would be a provider that appears in the top 10% of all providers for more than a year. Factors that are looked at to determine what to benchmark are physician productivity, practice efficiency, revenue generation, coding performance, and collections. A practice management system can be used to generate reports on the most important factors at regular intervals.
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A benchmark is a claim reporting or payment pattern derived from external sources.
Benchmarking
Continual comparison measurement of a medical practice to those of the toughest competitor to find and implement methods to improve the business. There are three types: internal benchmarking, competitive benchmarking , and functional benchmarking . Internal is when similar processes in the same organization are compared. Competitive is when an organization’s processes are compared with the best medical practices within the industry. Functional refers to benchmarking a similar function or process in another industry (e.g., appointment scheduling).
Beneficial Interest
The interest arising from an Insurance Policy.
Beneficial occupancy date (BOD)
Month, day, and year on which a health care facility is available to provide the services it was built for.