Language barriers can lead to dangerous deficiencies in patient care, but financial constraints have kept the use of medical interpreters in physician offices relatively low. A proposed rule would require healthcare entities, including small physician offices, to provide "enhanced language assistance for people with limited English proficiency" at their own expense.
The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) has expressed a mixed reaction to the proposed "Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities" rule, in that the physician group strongly supports the delivery of culturally proficient healthcare yet argues that the government should "do the right thing" and procure funding for such services, AAFP News reported.
In a letter to Sylvia Mathews Burwell, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, AAFP Board Chair Robert Wergin, M.D., urged HHS to fund the estimated annual $1,135 burden per practice or retract the mandate.
"We have significant concerns that primary care practices are already taking a financial loss for treating patients that require interpretive services because of the historical undervaluation of primary cares services in the resource-based relative value scale system," Wergin wrote. "Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for essential primary care services are simply inadequate and interpretive services remain costly. If the patient reschedules or does not appear for the appointment, the practice must still reimburse the interpreter."
Because of these constraints, some practices have developed work-around alternatives to live medical interpreter services, such as telephone- and video-based interpretation services and low-tech picture-based communication tools, FiercePracticeManagement reported previously.
To learn more:
- see the proposed rule (.pdf)
- read the letter (.pdf)
- here's the post