Improving access to care among Medicare beneficiaries with limited English proficiency: can Medicare do more?
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Insight on the issues (AARP Public Policy Institute)
- Contributor(s):
- Flowers, Lynda. AARP (Organization) Public Policy Institute (AARP (Organization))
- Publication:
- Washington, D.C. : AARP Public Policy Institute, [2008]
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Communication Barriers Health Services Accessibility Medicare -- organization & administration African Americans -- statistics & numerical data Aged Asian Americans -- statistics & numerical data Hispanic Americans -- statistics & numerical data Language Outcome Assessment (Health Care) Pilot Projects Humans United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- Language barriers prevent thousands of Medicare beneficiaries from communicating effectively with their health care providers. Communication failures in health care settings can lead to poor health outcomes, medical errors and increased costs. Medicare is doing some things to address the problem, but more can be done. Patient-provider communication is essential for effective management of chronic illness. Language barriers between patients and providers can lead to substandard care and medical errors. Federal policies that address language access have resulted in improvements in the availability of services for people with no or limited English skills; however, these policies have suffered from limited enforcement. This paper, which focuses on the Medicare population, examines problems associated with language barriers in health care settings, describes federal efforts to address the barriers, and makes policy recommendations. Communication barriers exist in many forms; this paper focuses on those that arise when providers and patients speak different languages.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-ND license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 19 leaves
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101484163 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101484163