Working Vocabulary

Each year, lots of new words and phrases make their way into our country’s common speech. When you look at the terms dictionary-keepers and others record over time, it’s easy to trace significant social trends, popular culture, the advent of new technology and even historical events.

Some of the new words introduced in the 1940s, for example, were “bikini,” “cheeseburger” and “TV.” The 1950s gave us “aerospace” and “data processing,” and “hippie” and “jet lag” appeared during the 1960s.

Skip to the 1990s and you’ll find “carjacking” and “personal trainer” on the list. Post 9-11, “air marshal” has become matter-of-fact.

I suspect former NBC anchorman Edwin Newman — you’ll remember him as a keen observer of language and an advocate for good grammar — must be having a field day as words like “chocotherapy” (you can guess what that one is about) and “truthiness” enter our conversations. Coined by Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert, the latter is defined as “truth that comes from the gut, not books.” The American Dialect Society further defined the word as “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.”

In health care’s particular lexicon, we first heard “managed care” in the 1980s. More recently, the nation’s “obesification” has been a hot topic. And this year for HME, “accreditation” has rocketed to the top as the word of the day.

Of course it’s not new, but for the providers in this industry accreditation definitely has a new importance. Previously, it has meant that HME companies completing the rigorous process set themselves apart from their competitors and came out with improved operations and efficiencies.

But now, for many HMEs, accreditation could mean the difference in staying in business — or not.

At a meeting last month, CMS told accreditors that providers who plan to enter the 2007 DMEPOS bid should be accredited by spring. That’s not a lot of time, especially since some of the newly deemed accrediting organizations say it could take four to six months to work through their programs.

Nevertheless, it is clear CMS is moving ahead and will set accreditation deadlines to accommodate its rollout of competitive bidding. AAHomecare says agency officials have begun speaking with congressmen in those MSAs where providers must be accredited to help get them prepared.

CMS has estimated that when its bidding program is fully implemented, there will be fewer than half of the providers doing business with Medicare than there are now. I think most in this industry hope that won’t be the case.

I also hope that accreditation is part of your company’s working vocabulary. If it’s not — no matter what truthiness about the situation we might wish — you could end up in the wrong half. And that could take more than a little chocotherapy to fix.

For a list of approved DMEPOS accrediting organizations, see “Headline News.”