Medical interpreter rule faces review, legislative challenge

Some physicians view the policy as an unfunded mandate, but others see it as necessary to providing good care for non-English-speaking patients.

By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. May 21, 2001.

The Dept. of Health and Human Services is examining controversial Clinton administration guidelines that require physicians and other health professionals to provide interpreters for patients who don't speak English.

On Capitol Hill, Congress is considering a bill that would kill the policy, issued late last summer.

Proponents and opponents have spent recent weeks writing letters and meeting with White House officials to make sure their views are heard before HHS or Congress makes any decisions.

Immigrant advocates and some physicians say the guidelines are needed so Medicare and Medicaid patients with limited English skills, and often-limited income, get the medical services they need and to which they are entitled.

But other physicians and physician organizations say the guidelines are a "well-intended but unfunded federal mandate" that could push physicians out of Medicare and Medicaid.

"They wouldn't leave based on a lack of altruism; it would be for financial reasons," said American Medical Association Trustee J. Edward Hill, MD, a family physician from Tupelo, Miss.

The AMA, the nation's 50 state medical associations, and about 50 specialty medical and dental groups have sent letters to Washington asking HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson to put an "immediate moratorium" on the current guidelines because physicians are being left with high interpreter bills.

The groups say one physician recently spent $237 for an interpreter for a non-English-speaking patient. The Medicaid reimbursement for the patient's visit: $38. [...]