Physician certification and ambulatory care in Medicare and Medicaid

Medicare and Medicaid

These two terms are government programs meant to assist specific groups of in the United States regarding health matters and are both managed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Medicare is a social insurance program that pays for hospital and medical care for elderly and certain disabled Americans. The program consists of hospital insurance which pays the bill of the patient including meals, supplies, testing, and a semi-private room. The hospital insurance also has home extension healthcare provision such as physical, occupational, and speech therapy as medic may deem it necessary. Medicare also covers supplementary medical insurance that makes and settles medical bills relating to physician visits, outpatient hospital visits, home health care costs and other service costs for the aged and disabled. (MediLexicon International, 2011).

On the other hand Medicaid refers to health and medical services program that are tested for certain individuals and families with low incomes and few resources. For one to eligible for this program, one must meet certain requirements which are based on age, pregnancy status, disability status, citizenship, and other assets. This kind of people falls under certain group category, such as those who receive federal assisted maintenance income payments and similar groups who do not receive cash payments. (MediLexicon International, 2011)

Physician Certification

This is a process where a group of peers judge the entry level qualifications of an individual for purposes of practice. Physicians are certified in nuclear medicine by the American Board of Nuclear Medicine abbreviated as ABNM and the American Board of Radiology abbreviated as ABR. When a physician is fully certified by the ABNM, that physician have fulfilled all the requirements needed for training and is allowed to practice nuclear medicine since his competency is not in doubt. The certification process involves rigorous writing of examination tests ranging from medical uses of radioactive materials and related physical sciences to demonstrate the required excellence for the practice of nuclear medicine (SNM,2011).

Ambulatory care

Ambulatory care also known as outpatient care, is kind of medical care which provided to individual patients who do not need to stay overnight in a hospital premise or need not to admitted for closer treatment. These patients are treated and discharge once the treatment is over and are condition to walk way back home without complications of any sort. The kind of treatment done in ambulatory care includes minor injuries although some chronic conditions can be managed with regular ambulatory care appointments like asthma. Ambulatory care is also preferred by many people as it reduces the costs of admission with some ambulatory care hospital segments specializing in addressing particular medical conditions.( Smith,2011).