Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A poll tax.
  • noun A payment or fee of a fixed amount per person, such as one remitted at regular intervals to a medical provider by a managed care organization for an enrolled patient.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Numeration by the head; a numbering of persons, as the inhabitants of a city.
  • noun A tax or imposition upon each head or person; a poll-tax. Also called a capitation-tax.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A numbering of heads or individuals.
  • noun A tax upon each head or person, without reference to property; a poll tax.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Performing a headcount; the counting of people.
  • noun A poll tax.
  • noun A system of remuneration for providers of health care, in which providers enroll patients as permanent clients and receive a fixed periodic payment for each enrollee.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a tax levied on the basis of a fixed amount per person

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Late Latin capitātiō, capitātiōn-, from Latin caput, capit-, head; see kaput- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin capitationem, from caput ("head").

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Examples

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  • HMOs. When a physician is a paid a contracted rate per member assigned.

    June 14, 2016