Glossary of Terms Commonly Used in Mental Health, Page 12
This glossary provides definitions of many commonly used mental health terms and is based on a mental health dictionary supplied by the US Government’s Department of Health and Human Services, with updates added by editor Dr Greg Mulhauser.
T – W
- Telephone Hotline
- A dedicated telephone line that is advertised and may be operated as a crisis hotline for emergency counseling, or as a referral resource for callers with mental health problems.
- Therapeutic Foster Care
- A service which provides treatment for troubled children within private homes of trained families. The approach combines the normalizing influence of family-based care with specialized treatment interventions, thereby creating a therapeutic environment in the context of a nurturant family home.
- Third party payer
- A public or private organization that is responsible for the health care expenses of another entity.
- Underwriting
- The review of prospective or renewing cases to determine their risk and their potential costs.
- Unduplicated Counts
- Counting a client/patient and their services uniquely. Unduplicated counts can exist at different levels: a program, a local system of care, or at the State level.
- Unemployed
- Not currently employed. This could include people looking for work, or people engaged in other activities such as homemakers, students or volunteers.
- Unmet Needs
- Identified treatment needs of the people that are not being met as well as those receiving treatment that is inappropriate or not optimal.
- Utilization
- The level of use of a particular service over time.
- Utilization Management (UM)
- A system of procedures designed to ensure that the services provided to a specific client at a given time are cost-effective, appropriate, and least restrictive.
- Utilization review
- Retrospective analysis of the patterns of service usage in order to determine means for optimizing the value of services provided (minimize cost and maximize effectiveness/appropriateness).
- Utilization risk
- The risk that actual service utilization might differ from utilization projections.
- Vertical disintegration
- A practice of selling off health plan subsidiaries or provider activities. Vertical disintegration was a trend in the late 1990s.
- Vocational Rehabilitation Services
- Services that include job finding/development, assessment and enhancement of work-related skills, attitudes, and behaviors as well as provision of job experience to clients/patients. Includes transitional employment.
- Wraparound Services
- A unique set of community services and natural supports for a child/adolescent with serious emotional disturbances based on a definable planning process, individualized for the child and family to achieve a positive set of outcomes.
