beneficiary description

benf_desc

general

Updated 3/30/2026

Definition

The textual explanation for a insurance coverage recipient. Used to display and describe the beneficiary in a human-readable format. This field is commonly used in electronic health records (EHR), healthcare information systems (HIS), and clinical data warehouses for beneficiary management and reporting.

Standard Abbreviation

benf_desc

Database Usage

-- Example column naming
CREATE TABLE claims (
  clm_id VARCHAR(50),
  benf_desc VARCHAR(100),  -- beneficiary description
  ...
);

-- Example in SELECT
SELECT
  clm_id,
  benf_desc as beneficiary_description
FROM claims;

Common uses in healthcare data

Healthcare data warehouse schema design and modeling
Interoperability and cross-system data exchange
ETL pipeline development and orchestration
Master data management (MDM) programs
Analytics and business intelligence reporting

Example database column name

ISO-11179 snake_case standard

-- Recommended column name
benf_desc

-- Example DDL
CREATE TABLE healthcare_data (
  record_id   VARCHAR(50)   NOT NULL,
  benf_desc    VARCHAR(255),  -- beneficiary description
  created_dt  TIMESTAMP     NOT NULL DEFAULT NOW()
);

Column names follow the ISO-11179 naming convention: lowercase, underscore-separated, using the standard abbreviation as a prefix where applicable.

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