Terms Used In Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 74 > Subchapter K - Payment for Future Losses

• Annuity: A periodic (usually annual) payment of a fixed sum of money for either the life of the recipient or for a fixed number of years. A series of payments under a contract from an insurance company, a trust company, or an individual. Annuity payments are made at regular intervals over a period of more than one full year.
• Claimant: means a person, including a decedent's estate, seeking or who has sought recovery of damages in a health care liability claim. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Court: means any federal or state court. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Health care: means any act or treatment performed or furnished, or that should have been performed or furnished, by any health care provider for, to, or on behalf of a patient during the patient's medical care, treatment, or confinement. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
• Health care liability claim: means a cause of action against a health care provider or physician for treatment, lack of treatment, or other claimed departure from accepted standards of medical care, or health care, or safety or professional or administrative services directly related to health care, which proximately results in injury to or death of a claimant, whether the claimant's claim or cause of action sounds in tort or contract. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
• Health care provider: means any person, partnership, professional association, corporation, facility, or institution duly licensed, certified, registered, or chartered by the State of Texas to provide health care, including:
  (i) a registered nurse;
  (ii) a dentist;
  (iii) a podiatrist;
  (iv) a pharmacist;
  (v) a chiropractor;
  (vi) an optometrist;
  (vii) a health care institution; or
  (viii) a health care collaborative certified under Chapter 848, Insurance Code. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Physician: means :
  (A) an individual licensed to practice medicine in this state;
  (B) a professional association organized under the Texas Professional Association Act (Article 1528f, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes) by an individual physician or group of physicians;
  (C) a partnership or limited liability partnership formed by a group of physicians;
  (D) a nonprofit health corporation certified under § 162. See Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 74.001
• United States: includes a department, bureau, or other agency of the United States of America. See Texas Government Code 311.005