Healthcare facilities are mandated to address interpreting needs. Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act requires that all federally funded institutions make “reasonable” attempts to provide meaningful access to language services for limited-English-proficiency patients. From in-person to over-the-phone to remote interpreting, various strategies have been employed to bridge language gaps. What doesn’t work is ad hoc interpreting by an untrained interpreter. All too often one hears about a young child or family member interpreting between doctor and patient, which can lead to miscommunication or inaccurate presentation of symptoms, instructions, diagnosis, and more. Or, even if a qualified interpreter is available on-site, the doctor or nurse and the interpreter may not be available at the same time, which can lead to delays in patient care.
Archive for the ‘Government’ Category
Remote Medical Interpreting – meeting the needs of LEP populations
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
Healthcare Reform and the Life Sciences Industry
Friday, April 9th, 2010The recently approved healthcare reform legislation will extend coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans, change practices for coverage limitations or denials for people with existing medical conditions, and enable the self-employed to purchase insurance through state-based exchanges. As one would expect, money to cover healthcare reform needs to come from somewhere. In addition to going after medical insurance fraud, several taxes are included in the legislation (many in the life sciences industry) to help pay the bills, including:
– Drug manufacturers would pay $16 billion between 2011 and 2019.
– Health insurers would pay $47 billion over the same period.
– Medical device manufacturers would pay a 2.9 percent excise tax on the sale of any of their wares, beginning Jan. 1, 2013. Earlier drafts of the bill called for the additional fees for medical device makers to go into affect this year, but the final bill delayed that until 2013.