the.com/outpatient
Sick enough to need the hospital, well enough to be billed and sent home.
means A patient who receives medical treatment at a hospital or clinic without staying overnight.
from Straightforward compound from 'out' + 'patient' — patients were classed by where their care happened. The hospital's 'in-patients' occupied beds inside; 'out-patients' were treated and sent back out into the world. The term took hold in the 1700s–1800s as hospitals formalized outpatient departments for people who needed care but not a bed.
- origin
- opposite of inpatient, coined for hospital record-keeping
- stay length
- under 24 hours by definition
- cost truth
- usually far cheaper than admission, same equipment
- modern shift
- surgeries once requiring weeks now done same-day