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To look up a health care term such as Actuary, choose the letter that the term begins with below under Alphabetical Glossary. This will take you to the terms beginning with that letter. To look up a health care acronym such as AIDS, choose the letter that the term begins with below under Acronyms. This will take you to all acronyms that begin with that letter.

Ultra-Sound Technician	Performs medical diagnosis using high frequency sound waves and imaging techniques to generate images of cross sections of organs. Works under the direction of a radiologist.
Unbundling	Separating a service into its individual components and billing for each component separately. Also refers to a trend in insurance benefits contracting where the purchaser unbundles or contracts separately for specific services.
Uncompensated Care	The charges for services rendered by providers which are not paid for by the recipient and for which there is usually no third-party coverage. Uncompensated care is usually either charity care or bad debt.
Undergraduate Medical Education	The medical training provided to students in medical or osteopathy school.
Underinsured	People with public or private insurance policies that do not cover all necessary medical services, resulting in out-of-pocket expenses that exceed their ability to pay.
Underwriting	The process of selecting, classifying, evaluating, and assuming risks according to their insurability. Its fundamental purpose is to make sure that the group covered has the same probability of loss and probable amount of loss, within reasonable limits, as the universe on which premium rates or subscriber fees were based.
Uniform Benefits	See standard benefits package.
Uniform Billing Code of 1992 (UB-92)	A revised version of the UB-92, a Federal directive requiring a hospital to follow specific billing procedures, itemizing all services included and billed for on each invoice, implemented October 1, 1993.
Uniform Claim Form	All insurers and self-insurers would be required to use a single claims form and standardized format for electronic claims.
Uniform Health Data Act	Amendment of this act ensures that discharge data currently required of hospitals resides with the state and can be publicly released without prior permission of the hospitals. In addition, the act calls upon the Delaware Health Care Commission to study the feasibility of broadening its scope to apply to other health care facilities, such as nursing homes and ambulatory surgical centers.
Uniform Hospital Discharge Data Set	A defined set of data that gives a minimum description of a hospital discharge. It includes data on age, sex, race, residence of patient, length of stay, diagnosis, physicians, procedures, disposition of the patient and sources of payment.
Uninsured	People who lack health insurance.
Uninsured Population	An estimated 34 million Americans do not have health insurance. 56% are workers. 28% are children. 16.5% are non-working adults. 83% of workers have private health insurance.
Unit Clerk	See ward clerk.
Universal Access	Access to health insurance coverage for everyone.
Universal Coverage	See standard benefit package.
Urgent Care Center or Unit	A medical facility where ambulatory patients can be treated without an appointment, and receive immediate, non-emergency care. The urgent care center may be opened 24 hours a day; patients calling an HMO after hours with urgent, but not emergent, clinical problems, are often referred to these facilities.    A similar facility is a Medical Aid Unit, which is not usually opened 24 hours a day.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)	The Federal department which regulates and administers health and human service programs in the United States. It was created in 1953 and was known as the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare until 1980 when the U.S. Department of Education was created as a separate department. The Secretary of HHS advises the President on the health, welfare, and income security plans, policies, and programs of the Federal government. Also see Health Care Financing Administration HCFA.
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)	Established in 1965, HUD is the principal Federal agency responsible for programs concerned with housing needs, fair housing opportunities, and improving and developing communities.
Usual, Customary and Reasonable Charges (UCR)	Charges for health care services in a geographical area that are consistent with the charges of identical or similar providers in the same geographic area.
Utilization	The patterns of use of a service or type of service within a specified time, usually expressed in a rate per unit of population-at-risk for a given period (e.g., the number of hospital admissions per year per 1,000 persons in a geographic area).
Utilization Management	The process of evaluating the necessity, appropriateness and efficiency of health care services. A review coordinator gathers information about the proposed hospitalization service or procedure from the patient and/or provider then determines whether it meets established guidelines and criteria.
Utilization Review (UR)	Evaluation of the use of hospital services, including the appropriateness of the admission, length of stay and ancillary services. Review may be conducted concurrently, retrospectively, or in combination. The process uses objective clinical criteria to ensure that the services are medically necessary and provided at the appropriate level of care. UR is conducted by the hospital for its own quality assurance and risk management system, using norms, criteria and standards adopted by its medical staff. Reports summarizing the findings and action taken as a result of the process are regularly provided to the hospital board. Hospitals conduct their own internally accountability system and comply with multiple delegated and non-delegated UR systems simultaneously. This occurs because of the hospital's legal responsibilities as well as each payer requiring its covered population to comply with its unique system as a condition of claims payment.
Utilization Review, Delegated	An entity external to the hospital under contract to the payer to review services provided a specific population contracts to use hospital personnel to conduct the review process. The norms, criteria and standards may be those adopted by the hospital medical staff or the external agency may require that its protocols be used. The hospital must report its patient-specific findings to the entity; it may also be required to summarize overall findings from its internal UR process.
Utilization Review, Non-Delegated	An entity external to the hospital under contract to the payer to review services provided a specific covered population operates a separate UR system, using its own norms, criteria and standards and relies upon its own personnel to obtain clinical information. It may use information obtained from clinicians, the patient, family, medical records, or claims information submitted for payment after patient discharge. It may be conducted concurrently or retrospectively, in person or the hospital premises, or by telephone, or by review of documentation.
Utilization Review Accreditation Commission (URAC)	A Washington-based, not-for-profit corporation formed in 1990 and dedicated to improving the quality of utilization review in the health care industry by providing a method of evaluation and accreditation of utilization review programs.