Confidential utilization review and medical audit process in which physicians review an ambulatory care facility to assure the quality of medical care, services, and procedures. This peer review process may be done by the local medical society or other organization approved by the medical society in a specific locale.

Outpatient hospital or free-standing medical or dental treatment facility that provides medical care on an outpatient basis, without an overnight stay. It offers diagnostic, therapeutic, and rehabilitative services; preventive care; emergency medicine; and minor surgery to individuals. See emergency center. Also called ambulatory surgery center, clinic, day surgery , free-standing surgical center, outpatient facility, primary care center, or urgent care center.

Medical conditions for which physicians broadly concur that a substantial proportion of these cases should not advance to the point where hospitalization is necessary if the patients are treated in a timely fashion with adequate primary care and managed properly on an outpatient basis.

Individual who is receiving medical services and is able to walk or ambulate in a wheelchair.

Classification system by case types used until 2000 as a payment method developed for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). It was replaced with ambulatory surgery categories (ASCs) and later replaced by the ambulatory payment classification (APC) system.

1. Method developed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for outpatient hospital reimbursement based on procedures that have similar clinical characteristics and similar costs rather than on diagnoses. 2. Medicare’s outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) for hospital outpatient services that became effective August 1, 2000. Depending on the services given, hospital facilities may be paid for more than one APC for an encounter. APC information is updated and released twice a year in the Federal Register. Also called ambulatory payment classes, ambulatory patient classifications (APCs), and ambulatory patient care groups.