It’s been three years since Health and Human Services’ final order on Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act took effect. US healthcare providers have worked hard to meet the language access requirements that Section 1557 lays out. Has your organization achieved compliance with the interpretation and translation requirements found in Section 1557 of the Affordable Care … Continued
MYTH 1: SIGN LANGUAGE IS UNIVERSAL. ONCE YOU KNOW IT, YOU CAN COMMUNICATE WITH THE DEAF ALL OVER THE WORLD It’s easy to watch someone signing and assume that those signs would work anywhere. But that’s not the case like spoken languages, sign language varies from place to place, and most countries have their own unique … Continued
Choosing a language services provider for your hospital or healthcare organization is a significant responsibility. The Joint Commission has identified communication problems between providers and their patients as the root cause of one in five sentinel events in healthcare, so choosing a partner to provide a quality of interpretation and translation which ensures clear communication is crucial. Unfortunately, some language services … Continued
A limited-English proficient (LEP) patient who refuses to use a professional interpreter can put your staff in a challenging position. First, there’s legal compliance to consider: Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act requires covered hospitals and healthcare organizations to provide qualified interpreters to patients who need them. Patient safety is also an issue: the Joint Commission lists provider/patient communication … Continued
Melanie is one of our RID-certified American Sign Language (ASL) Interpreters and an ASL-VRI supervisor who works in our video interpretation queue in Arizona. She’s also a CODA – a Child of Deaf Adults. Melanie’s mother is deaf and her father is hard of hearing, and they communicate with her primarily in American Sign Language. … Continued
While phone interpretation is a versatile modality that works for a variety of patient-provider scenarios, sometimes an interaction may need a little visual help. That’s where video interpretation comes in. The key benefits of using video interpretation include… Helping you connect to an interpreter Fast Like phone interpretation, video interpretation connects providers to a live … Continued
A 2018 review (entitled Patient Satisfaction of Telephone or Video Interpreter Services Compared with In-Person Services) collected results from eight separate studies. Each sought to compare patient satisfaction with phone or video interpretation to that of an on-site interpreter. Patient satisfaction – and its subsequent HCAHPS scores – represents a critical metric for hospitals and healthcare organizations. Understanding how language … Continued
*The material herein on ACA Section 1557 compliance is educational and informational only. No legal advice is provided.** New regulation continues to increase the importance of hospital language services. CMS’s rollout of their five-star rating results highlighted how language access may impact patient satisfaction and readmission rates. Now, the final section of the Affordable Care Act has added a … Continued
With legal battles ongoing, Propio reached out to attorney Andrew Stevens to write about the current state of Section 1557 litigation. The material herein is educational and informational only. No legal advice is provided. In 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) significantly expanded the rights of limited English proficient (LEP) individuals seeking … Continued
Miscommunication between the Deaf and hearing, especially during medical emergencies, can lead to disastrous results. The current pandemic has made these challenges more apparent, as news articles report on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing’s (DHOH) struggle to receive effective medical care during the COVID-19 outbreak. If your facility is not yet using video interpretation, American Sign … Continued
