Daphne L. Kackloudis is a member of the firm, she heads BMD Columbus’ health care practice, and she chairs BMD’s Empowerment and Opportunity (DE&I) Committee. Daphne’s success –and that of her clients – is rooted in the nexus between traditional health care legal services and health care public policy. She has broad and deep experience in health care operations, service delivery, payment systems, and compliance, as well as Medicaid, public policy, and government affairs. Daphne advises health care trade associations and health care providers as outside counsel and in-house as a member of her clients’ senior leadership teams.
Comply w/New HHS Translation Requirements for LEP Patients
IMPORTANT: Affordable Care Act LEP patient regulation changes require your practice to offer translation services (both written and verbal) to your Limited-English Proficiency patients. You should start preparing now to ensure your compliance in 2023.
A new Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule states that ALL practices that accept Medicare, Medicaid, or Tricare MUST provide LEP patient access to FREE translation services. Every single practice that takes government reimbursement must comply.
The consequences for failing to provide your patients with the ability to understand their healthcare are dire. All it takes is for one LEP patient to complain that they didn’t have access to translation services. If that happens, your practice can be required to pay damages and penalties, attorney fees and court costs, as well as potentially being excluded from participating in federal healthcare services.
This is where healthcare compliance attorneys Daphne Kackloudis & Ashley Watson can help. On Tuesday, December 13th at 3pm ET, they will present a 60-minute online training that will simplify these new complex LEP patient translation rules and provide you with step-by-step advice to help you comply with these new government regulations.
Here are just a few of the practical, actionable translation service strategies you’ll receive by attending this online training:
- Pinpoint which patients to include when offering translation services
- Avoid spending money on translation services that are not required
- Figure out how to accurately utilize telemedicine services to comply
- Uncover which translation services really meet the new federal requirements
- Identify which patient forms MUST be made available in multiple languages
- Pin down how to discuss your options with patients
- Implement processes for deaf and blind patients
- Prevent violations by training your front desk team to respond correctly to LEP patients
- Determine when you should and shouldn’t allow family members to translate
- Overcome easy-to-miss loopholes that can cause your translation services to fail audits
- Demystify government monitoring tactics to head off compliance nightmares
- Clarify when you are and are not required to provide access to translation services
- Bulletproof your staff documentation to protect against translation services violations
- And much, much more!
DON’T MAKE THE MISTAKE of waiting until an LEP patient shows up on your schedule before you start figuring out how to comply with these new federal rules. Just because your practice has never been asked to provide translation services before, doesn’t mean it won’t happen tomorrow.
Once your patients learn about your practice’s obligation to provide translation services, they will most certainly start to expect them. Remember, it only takes one disgruntled LEP patient to complain, and your practice can be hit with severe legal penalties for failing to comply with this new federal law.
Start preparing right now to comply with these new HHS translation services rules. Register for this 60-minute, plain-English online training today to help you comply with the translation requirements and protect your practice against time-consuming, stressful lawsuits. Attendance for this training session is limited, so guarantee your access by signing up today!
Meet Your Experts
Ashley Watson
Esq.Assistant General Counsel
Ashley is Assistant General Counsel at a large hospital network in Columbus, Ohio. Prior to this, Ashley was a healthcare attorney in BMD’s Columbus office. She worked with nonprofit and for-profit health care providers, health care trade associations, individuals, and businesses. Ashley is experienced in healthcare public policy and regulatory compliance, legislative and government affairs, grant administration, and healthcare program operations.