The word map
A place for each unfamiliar word.
A name on an offer can refer to a kind of visit, a medicine, or a payment rule. These definitions help tell them apart.
Words about getting care
- Telehealth
- Care shared by screen, phone, or messages instead of a room visit.
- Specialist
- Someone presented as having special knowledge of a kind of care. Ask what training and experience support that description.
- Prescription
- A medicine order written or given by someone licensed to prescribe.
- Licence
- A state record of a clinician’s permission to practise.
- Assessment
- The part of a visit where you discuss your health and the reason for care.
Words about the medicine
- Tirzepatide
- The ingredient in the medicines Mounjaro and Zepbound.
- Approval
- A product and its intended use have passed review by the Food and Drug Administration, known as the FDA.
- Compounding
- Making or mixing a medicine for a patient’s needs, rather than handing over a drug company’s finished product.
- Shortage
- Too little medicine to meet demand across the country. The FDA keeps a national shortage list; a pharmacy running out locally is a different matter.
- Trial
- A study that asks what happened in a defined group.
- Unwanted effects
- Problems reported during treatment, from stomach upset to more serious harms.
- Misleading offer
- An offer whose claims need a closer check.
Words about paying and deciding
- Self-pay
- Payment for medicine outside an insurance claim.
- Coverage
- What a health plan may pay for under its own rules.
- Prior approval
- The payment decision a health plan makes before covering a medicine.
- Care questions
- Notes that keep your aims and unanswered questions together.