Friday, June 17, 2016

Lexicon sampler, 2016 Q1

Discovering a previously unknown chunk of the English language is one of the joys of doing work in a new field. And the more I notice such terms accumulating, I find that listing them brings the pleasure of focus, helping me count my blessings, as it were.

Thus, this short list of newfound words and phrases culled, or perhaps gleaned, from this spring's work in healthcare finance.

opine - a shorter way of saying someone is giving an opinion

hypervirulent - easy to grasp the concept of this one, but only if you know what virulent means

armamentarium - surprised I was to find this in the dictionary, keeping company with armaments and arsenal

dyad - although a perfectly good word to describe something with two parts, it has a decidedly snooty sound

evince - more familiar than some of the others, but just as rarely used by this writer

drug-eluting stent - a phrase with quite a ring to it, but which does not lend itself to a one-line summary

combinatorial complexity - a poetic way of describing having way too many cooks in the kitchen to be able to figure out what actually ended up in the soup

comorbidity - a frequently used term, apparently well understood, but with which I do not want to be associated (or be described)

CMS, CMI - the institutions behind Medicare that are frequently in the news but that I never before understood, and I'm still not sure I do

bonus/malus - which referred to a French incentive/disincentive plan I came across while working in a different field (this pair probably wouldn't have made me blink if I had taken Latin way back when)

So there. Let us continue our quest for clear and precise communication. :)