Pay Now Or Pay Later: Providing Interpreter Services In Health Care
- 1 March 2005
- journal article
- Published by Health Affairs (Project Hope) in Health Affairs
- Vol. 24 (2) , 435-444
- https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.24.2.435
Abstract
Research amply documents that language barriers impede access to health care, compromise quality of care, and increase the risk of adverse health outcomes among patients with limited English proficiency. Federal civil rights policy obligates health care providers to supply language services, but wide gaps persist because insurers typically do not pay for interpreters, among other reasons. Health care financing policies should reinforce existing medical research and legal policies: Payers, including Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurers, should develop mechanisms to pay for interpretation services for patients who speak limited English.Keywords
This publication has 11 references indexed in Scilit:
- Errors in Medical Interpretation and Their Potential Clinical Consequences in Pediatric EncountersPediatrics, 2003
- Effect of spanish interpretation method on patient satisfaction in an urban walk-in clinicJournal of General Internal Medicine, 2002
- Left Out: Immigrants’ Access To Health Care And InsuranceHealth Affairs, 2001
- Drug complications in outpatientsJournal of General Internal Medicine, 2000
- Satisfaction with methods of spanish interpretation in an ambulatory care clinicJournal of General Internal Medicine, 1999
- Interpreter Use and Satisfaction With Interpersonal Aspects of Care for Spanish-Speaking PatientsMedical Care, 1998
- The Effects of Ethnicity and Language on Medical Outcomes of Patients with Hypertension or DiabetesMedical Care, 1997
- Risk Factors for Asthmatic Patients Requiring Intubation. I. Observations in ChildrenJournal of Asthma, 1995
- Cost and speed of locomotion for rotifersOecologia, 1984
- Effects of interpreters on the evaluation of psychopathology in non- English-speaking patientsAmerican Journal of Psychiatry, 1979