Dictionary

The Dictionary provides concise definitions of health economics terms, arranged alphabetically for quick reference. Use it to understand unfamiliar terminology or confirm the meaning of a specific term.

1–50 of 226 terms in M

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MAA SubmissionTermMAA Dossier, Marketing Authorisation Application: A Marketing Authorisation Application submitted to the European Medicines Agency seeking approval to market a new drug within the EU.
Machine Learning in HealthcareTermHealthcare Machine Learning, Clinical ML: The application of machine learning techniques to healthcare problems, covering diagnostic support, treatment recommendation, and predictive risk modelling.
Magnitude EstimationTermMagnitude Scaling, Direct Ratio Judgement: A psychophysical scaling method in which respondents assign numbers to stimuli reflecting their perceived relative magnitude compared to a reference stimulus.
Mail-Order PharmacyTermMail-Order Dispensing, Home Delivery Pharmacy: A pharmacy service dispensing and delivering prescription medications directly to patients by mail, typically at lower cost for maintenance medications.
Main ComparatorTerm: Main comparator, in a PBAC submission, is the therapy prescribers would most replace with the new medicine; the economic evaluation is made against it.
Main EffectTermMarginal Effect Term, Principal Effect: The portion of output variance attributable to a single input parameter considered on its own, distinguished from its interaction effects with others.
Maintenance DoseTermSustaining Dose, Regular Dose: The regular, ongoing dose given after an initial loading dose, if used, to sustain a stable therapeutic drug concentration.
Maintenance TherapyTermContinuation Therapy, Sustaining Treatment: Ongoing treatment given after an initial, more intensive phase to sustain a positive response and prevent relapse or progression.
Major Molecular ResponseTermMMR, Three-Log Reduction: A response threshold in chronic myeloid leukaemia representing a substantial reduction in detectable disease-associated genetic material, linked to low progression risk.
Major ResponseTermMajor Clinical Response, Marked Response: A general term for a substantial, predefined reduction in disease burden following treatment, distinct from a minimal or partial response.
Malmquist IndexConceptMalmquist Productivity Index, TFP Index: A productivity measure decomposing efficiency change over time into genuine technical progress versus change relative to an evolving best-practice frontier.
Malpractice RVUTermMP RVU, Professional Liability RVU: A US Medicare relative value component reflecting the professional liability insurance cost attributable to providing a specific service.
Managed Access AgreementConceptMAA, NICE Managed Access: A managed access agreement is a time-limited NHS England deal funding a promising but uncertain medicine while data are collected for a NICE reappraisal.
Managed Access ProgramTerm: Managed Access Program is a PBS risk-sharing arrangement, set in a deed with the sponsor, giving access to a medicine while uncertainty is addressed.
Managed Care ModelTermManaged Care Arrangement, Integrated Delivery Financing: A delivery and financing approach coordinating care for a defined population using a contracted provider network and utilisation management tools.
Managed Care OrganizationTermMCO, Managed Care Insurer: An entity coordinating healthcare delivery for a defined population using a contracted provider network and utilisation management tools to control costs.
Managed Entry AgreementConceptMEA, Access-with-Evidence Agreement, Managed Entry: An arrangement governing the conditions under which a technology enters the market, often incorporating outcomes-based payment or coverage with evidence development.
Mandate DesignTermMandate Structure, Coverage Requirement Design: The specific structure of an insurance mandate, including its applicable population, coverage standard, exemptions, and any non-compliance penalty.
Mantel-Haenszel MethodConceptMantel-Haenszel Test, Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel Test, CMH Test, MH Method: The Mantel-Haenszel method pools 2x2 tables from trials or strata into one fixed-effect odds ratio, risk ratio or risk difference for HTA meta-analysis.
Manufacturer ResponseTermManufacturer Submission Response, Company Response: A formal reply from a manufacturer addressing questions or criticisms raised during an assessment process, typically after an evidence review.
Manufacturer SubmissionTermCompany Submission, Sponsor Dossier: The complete package of clinical and economic evidence a manufacturer provides in support of a coverage or reimbursement application.
Manufacturing DevelopmentTermProcess Development, CMC Development: The process of designing and validating a reliable, scalable, quality-controlled process for producing a drug or biologic at commercial scale.
Mapping FunctionConceptMapping Algorithm, Crosswalk Function, Transfer-to-Utility Function: The specific statistical relationship, typically estimated through regression, used within a mapping algorithm to convert a health status score into a predicted utility value.
Mapping StudyConceptMapping Exercise, Mapping Analysis: Mapping study is research that estimates and validates a model predicting health state utilities from a non-preference-based measure, for use in QALYs.
Margin ManagementTermMargin Control, Profitability Management: The financial strategies an organisation uses to manage the difference between revenue and expenses, ensuring adequate resources to sustain operations.
Marginal AnalysisConceptAnalysis at the Margin, Incremental Reasoning: Marginal analysis compares the extra cost and extra benefit of a small change in a health service, to judge whether expanding or cutting it is worthwhile.
Marginal BenefitTermIncremental Benefit, Benefit at the Margin: The additional benefit gained from one more unit of a good, service, or activity.
Marginal CostConceptExtra-Unit Cost, Cost at the Margin: Marginal cost is the change in total economic cost caused by producing one additional unit of output at a specified level of activity and over a specified time horizon.
Marginal Cost EstimationTermMarginal Cost Calculation, Incremental Unit Costing: The process of estimating the additional cost of producing one more unit of a good or service at the current level of output.
Marginal Cost of HealthcareConceptHealthcare Marginal Cost, Marginal Health System Cost: The additional cost of providing one more unit of healthcare service, such as treating one further patient.
Marginal Cost-EffectivenessTermMarginal CE, Expansion Cost-Effectiveness: The additional cost required to produce one more unit of health effect at the margin of an intervention's current scale, distinct from its average.
Marginal Rate of SubstitutionConceptMRS, Substitution Rate: The rate at which a consumer is willing to trade one good for another while keeping the same overall level of satisfaction.
Market AccessTermPatient Access Pathway, Reimbursement Access: The overall process by which a manufacturer secures favourable coverage, reimbursement, and clinical adoption for a new health technology.
Market Access PlanTermReimbursement Plan, Coverage Plan: A manufacturer's strategic document outlining how a new technology will be positioned to achieve favourable coverage and reimbursement across relevant payers.
Market Access StrategyTermMA Strategy, Access Strategy: A manufacturer's overall plan for achieving favourable coverage, reimbursement, and clinical adoption for a new treatment, integrating pricing and evidence generation.
Market EquilibriumConceptSupply-Demand Equilibrium, Clearing Equilibrium, Market Clearing: Market equilibrium is a price-and-quantity outcome at which planned demand equals planned supply for a specified good or service under the conditions of a stated market model.
Market ExclusivityTermMarketing Exclusivity: A period during which regulators will not approve a competing generic or biosimilar, arising from patent protection, regulatory provisions, or both.
Market FailureConceptMarket Inefficiency, Allocation Failure, Market Imperfection: Market failure occurs when markets do not allocate resources efficiently, as in health care through externalities, unequal information or insurance gaps.
Market ModelTermPrice-Formation Model, Supply-Demand Market Representation: A model representing how a technology's uptake, pricing, and competitive dynamics are expected to evolve within a specific market over time.
Market ShareTermSales Share, Market Uptake Proportion: The proportion of eligible patients or total treatment volume captured by a particular product within a defined market.
Market Share RebateTermShare-Based Rebate, Volume Share Rebate: A rebate arrangement in which the discount a manufacturer provides depends on the treatment's achieved market share relative to competing products.
Market StructureTermMarket Organisation, Competitive Structure: The organisational characteristics of a market, including the number of buyers and sellers and barriers to entry, that determine its degree of competition.
Marketing AuthorizationTermMarketing Authorisation, Product Licence: The formal regulatory approval required before a pharmaceutical product can be legally marketed within a given jurisdiction, based on safety and efficacy review.
Markov AssumptionConceptMarkov Property, Memoryless Assumption: The Markov assumption is that the next transition in a state-transition model depends only on the current state and model time, not on earlier history.
Markov ChainConceptMarkov Process, Discrete Markov Process: A Markov chain is a random process moving between states in which the next state depends only on the current state. It underlies Markov cohort models.
Markov Chain Monte CarloConceptMCMC, Posterior Sampling: Markov chain Monte Carlo is a class of simulation methods that constructs a Markov chain with a chosen target distribution as its stationary distribution and uses dependent draws from the chain to approximate expectations and uncertainty under that distribution.
Markov Cohort ModelConceptCohort Markov Model, Aggregate Markov Model: A Markov model tracking a hypothetical cohort collectively as proportions across health states over cycles, rather than simulating each patient separately.
Markov MicrosimulationConceptIndividual-Level Markov Model, First-Order Markov Simulation: Markov microsimulation is an individual-level state-transition modeling method that simulates each person's sequence of health states over time using transition probabilities that may depend on current state, personal characteristics, time, and explicitly retained history.
Markov ModelConceptMarkov State Model, Multi-State Markov Framework: A Markov model is a memoryless state-transition model used in economic evaluation: people move between health states each cycle, accruing costs and QALYs.
Martingale ResidualConceptCounting-Process Residual, Survival Model Residual: A residual used to diagnose the fit of a Cox model, checking the functional form of continuous covariates and identifying influential observations.