Cafeteria Plan - Arrangements under which employees may choose their own benefit structure. Sometimes these are varying benefit plans or add-ons provided through the same insurer or 3rd party administrator, other times this refers to the offering of different plans or HMOs provided by different managed care or insurance companies.

Call Center - See Referral Center.

Capital Costs - Capital costs usually involve equipment and physical plant costs, not consumable supplies. Included in these costs can be interest, leases, rentals, taxes and insurance on physical assets like plant and equipment. Capital costs are usually reimbursed to cost based facilities through submission of these costs on annual cost reports to the CMS intermediaries. Depreciation schedules apply.

Capital Expenditure Review - A review of proposed capital expenditures of hospitals or providers to determine the need for, and appropriateness of, the proposed expenditures. The review is usually done by a designated regulatory agency and has a sanction attached that prevents or discourages unneeded expenditures. Often this is related to CMS or Medicare and the willingness of the federal government to provide allowances for capital costs.

Capital Cost Report - Similar to the above review but normally produced retrospectively rather than prospectively.

Capitation (Cap, Capped, Capitated) - Specified amount paid periodically to health provider for a group of specified health services, regardless of quantity rendered. Amounts are determined by assessing a payment "per covered life" or per member. The method of payment in which the provider is paid a fixed amount for each person served no matter what the actual number or nature of services delivered. The cost of providing an individual with a specific set of services over a set period of time, usually a month or a year. A payment system whereby managed care plans pay health care providers a fixed amount to care for a patient over a given period. Providers are not reimbursed for services that exceed the allotted amount. The rate may be fixed for all members or it can be adjusted for the age and gender of the member, based on actuarial projections of medical utilization.

Capped Fee - See Fee Schedule.

Captive Agents - Agents that represent only one health plan or insurer.

Carrier - An insurer; an underwriter of risk that finances health care. Also refers to any organization, which underwrites or administers life, health or other insurance programs. When an employer has a 搒elf-insured?plan, the carrier (such as Aetna or Blue Cross) may not serve as carrier in this case, but may serve only as 搕hird party administrator?

Carve-In - A generic term that refers to any of a continuum of joint efforts between clinicians and service providers; also used specifically to refer to health care delivery and financing arrangements in which all covered benefits (e.g., behavioral and general health care) are administered and funded by an integrated system.

Carve-Out - The separation of a medical service (or a group of services) from the basic set of benefits in some way. Normally, the practice of excluding specific services from a managed care organization's capitated rate. In some instances, the same provider will still provide the service, but they will be reimbursed on a fee-for-service basis. In other instances, carved out services will be provided by an entirely different provider. A payer strategy in which a payer separates ("carves-out") a portion of the benefit and hires an MCO to provide these benefits. A health care delivery and financing arrangement in which certain specific health care services that are covered benefits (e.g., behavioral health care) are administered and funded separately from general health care services. The carve-out is typically done through separate contracting or sub-contracting for services to the special population. Common carve outs include such services as psychiatric, rehab, chemical dependency and ambulatory services. Increasingly, oncology and cardiac services are being carved out. This permits the payer to create a separate health benefits package and assume greater control of their costs. Many HMOs and insurance companies adopt this strategy because they do not have in-house expertise related to the service "carved out." A "carve-out" is typically a service provided within a standard benefit package but delivered exclusively by a designated provider or group. This process may or may not seem transparent to the subscriber, but it often means that separate UR and pre-certification entities are involved as well as different payers and providers. Carve-outs are also called sub-contractors, sub-captivators or junior capitation contracts.