Health Professional Mobility and Health Systems

The regulations mandate that health plans provide enrollees with translated vital documents (for example, explanations of benefits) and ensure the availability of interpreter services at all points of patient contact, including clinical encounters (DrTango Inc. n.d.). Services must be provided at no cost to the enrollee. To guide the development of these services, plans must collect patient demographic data, including language information gathered through a patient survey. 3 Health plans also must monitor their language service programs to track plan and provider compli- ance. 4 Although providing some guidance on what elements the programs should include, the regulations gave health plans flexibility...