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AMA: Doctors shouldn't pay for translators

Interpreters' fees often exceed Medicaid payments for office visits.

By Markian Hawryluk, amednews staff. Jan. 14, 2002.

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Washington -- In the latest step in its dispute over federal regulations requiring physicians to provide medical interpreters for patients with limited English skills, the AMA has called for a moratorium on the rules.

The association is "strongly opposed to allowing the burden of funding written and oral interpretation services for limited-English-proficiency patients to fall on physicians," the AMA stated in a Dec. 21 letter to the Office of Management and Budget.

Many physicians are irate about guidelines issued by the Dept. of Health and Human Services' Office of Civil Rights in August 2000 on limited-English-proficiency patients. It would require all physicians who receive federal funding, including Medicaid payments, to provide at their own expense a trained clinical interpreter for all their patients with limited English skills. The measure would require physicians who get federal payments to provide interpreters to all patients, even those with private insurance.

But physicians argue that Medicaid payments don't cover the cost of providing care even in normal situations. The additional translation services requirements "could reduce, not strengthen, access to health care services for limited-English-proficiency patients," the AMA said.

Physicians say the rules put them in a difficult position.

"This is a patient-care issue, definitely. We want to have good communication between our patients and the physicians," said Dale Moquist, MD, a family physician from Bryan, Texas. "However, this is an unfunded mandate. We feel it should not be the patient's responsibility, and it should not be the physician's responsibility." [...]