Secretary of the Army says language and culture vital for future missions. May 25, 2012
Posted by Louis F. Provenzano, Jr. in Careers in language, Joint Commission, Language Access, Language Capital of the World, The Defense Language Institute (DLI), The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), United States Military.add a comment
Secretary of the Army John McHugh speaking at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, the language capital of the world
Language Line Services Launches Interpreter Records Portal to Help Healthcare Providers Meet New Standards of The Joint Commission November 15, 2011
Posted by Louis F. Provenzano, Jr. in Interpretation, Interpreters, Joint Commission, Langage Line Services, Language Access, Language Compliance, Language Legislation.Tags: certification, Joint Commission, Langage Line Services, Language Compliance
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// MONTEREY, Calif., Nov. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Language Line Services, the global leader in interpreting and language solutions, announced today it is launching a secure, on-demand web-based interpreter training records portal for its healthcare customers to help them meet new and revised regulatory requirements of The Joint Commission standards for language interpreter proof of competency.
The new Joint Commission standards for language access move out of the pilot phase and begin impacting accreditation decisions on January 1, 2012.
“In order to have their facilities accredited, hospitals require these records to provide to The Joint Commission during surveys to verify the quality of a hospital’s language access program. Gone are the days where organizations try to bypass this critical requirement with band-aid solutions,” said Jonathan Hirsch, Director of Guest Services at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, N.J.
“By providing complete interpreter training information, Language Line Services is stepping up to assure that the healthcare providers they serve have the documentation they need for full compliance and to retain their accreditation,” Hirsch remarked.
The portal will be a secure central point for Language Line Services customers to access and address:
- Interpreter training records
- Continuing education
- Monitoring and continuous quality control
- Proof of competency
- Verifiable process governing the hiring, screening and qualifications of interpreters
- Cultural competency training
Interpreters listed in the database who have met all competency standards will receive the “I-PATH” (Interpreter Proficiency, Assessment, Training in Healthcare) Scorecard, a symbol to themselves and to healthcare providers using them that The Joint Commission language access standards are being complied with.
“As a former Regulator, some mechanism like the ‘I-PATH’ is invaluable as a convenient source for this much needed information. The availability of this information will shorten the review time needed by surveyors and improve the review process itself,” said Martin Conroy, Senior Manager Public Sector Program, Language Line Services and former regulator for the New York Department of Health.
Most healthcare providers use a combination of on-site and third-party over-the-phone interpreters, some in as many as 170 languages as well as American Sign Language (ASL) for deaf and hard-of-hearing patients and families.
“Language Line Services has been at the forefront of language access in healthcare since its founding nearly 30 years ago. As the leading language services partner to healthcare providers, we provided critical compliance support for The Joint Commission’s new and revised language access standards,” said Louis F. Provenzano, Jr., President and CEO of Language Line Services.
“Our customers increasingly request detailed training records as proof of competency to ensure consistency with standards of practice in everything we do from interpreter recruitment to cultural training,” continued Provenzano.
“The fact that we are the only language service provider that has an employee-based model for its interpreters, rather than primarily using contractors, means we can legally test, train, and monitor them for quality to ensure consistency and also protect patient health information (PHI). This is critical to The Joint Commission, and to our healthcare customers and the patients they provide care for.
“Hospitals must ask themselves what dangers they face by using language service providers who cannot help them provide the needed documentation to ensure such accreditation.”
The Language Line Services interpreter training records portal uses industry best practices for securing electronic records to protect patient health information and is compliant with HIPAA, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the HITECH Act.
“We applaud the efforts of Language Line® University and Language Line Services. This is a magnificent new tool that hospitals need to ensure that those interpreting for them are truly competent via training and testing. It will also increase the adherence to skilled medical interpreters and to acknowledge the value they bring to patient safety and reducing health disparities,” said Izabel Arocha, Executive Director of the International Medical Interpreters Association.
“Our profession needs to continuously improve by training and offering the best medical interpreters worldwide. No longer can you use unqualified medical interpreters for critical healthcare interactions. In order to guarantee patient safety, it is now time to provide enhanced additional training and proudly showcase all training records and areas of success to The Joint Commission,” Arocha said.
About Language Line Services
Language Line Services, the global leader in telephone interpreting and language solutions, serves clients in healthcare, government, telecommunications, financial services, utilities, insurance and many other industries by quickly connecting them to their customers, patients and sales prospects in more than 170 spoken languages as well as American Sign Language (ASL) and Mexican Sign Language (LSM). Language Line Services is recognized as a trusted partner to thousands of public and private organizations throughout the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, providing easy access to one of the industry’s fastest language interpreting services at highly competitive rates. For more information about Language Line Services’ suite of telephone, on-site and video interpreting, document translation, interpreter assessment and training programs, please call (800) 752-6096 or visit http://www.languageline.com
Contact:
Carla Collado
Olmstead Williams Communications
310.824.9000
ccollado@olmsteadwilliams.com
http://www.olmsteadwilliams.com
This press release was issued through eReleases(R). For more information, visit eReleases Press Release Distribution at http://www.ereleases.com.
SOURCE Language Line Services
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Joint Commission Audits Are Underway for language access October 20, 2011
Posted by Louis F. Provenzano, Jr. in Interpreters, Joint Commission, Langage Line Services, Language Access.Tags: Language Access, language line services, Mission Critical
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The Joint Commission has issued new language standards that have gone into effect January 1, 2011 and will be enforced January 2012.
In preparation of this, several of our clients have already been audited and questions have come up about the training records and assessment scores of our interpreters. As it relates to our medical interpreters, at Language Line Services, we of course provided all the records needed for our clients to be compliant. This was easy for us to do, and with these new standards, it is a necessity.
We can obviously and easily do this, as we train, supervise, control and monitor the quality of our interpreters around the world.
But an interesting phenomenon has occurred. Our competition doesn’t seem to be able to do this? Why?
Most use independent contractors. They can’t train, monitor, supervise, control their workforce.
When the surveyors ask for training records, as you can only imagine, the response might be either #1 “they aren’t available”, #2 “Our company position is we don’t release this information” ( I found this one the most humorous and the one that would be the most contentious in any Hospital litigation ) or #3 “we will get back to you with an answer”. ( this one alone is problematic since the audits require an “immediate” answer.)
I think this “training” issue is critical and needs to be highlighted.
HIPAA, Medicare and other agencies require annual training. (Just to name a few) Proof of this is required and those companies not only can’t demonstate ongoing “training”, they also seem to just send a call in language they can not serve to another provider for additional language support.
How can you be HIPAA compliant when you outsource to a third party that hasn’t undergone training and compliance? Clearly a third party’s interpreters don’t sign a HIPAA form for your organization.
Through all the acquisitions Language Line Services has made, every one of our acquired companies outsourced to another provider. This misrepresentation of business practices was evident once we looked “under the hood”. Everyone of them did it and we stopped the practice on day one of acquiring or integrating the company.
That said, key and current training on critical medical terms, ensuring that an interpreter is “current” in their “vernacular” and trained to better understand new medical technologies, new procedures, latest medical information is our core competency. Our Language Line University assessment programs are world class and used by some of the most prestigious hospital systems in the country.
In the world of patient safety and in respect for these new standards, lack of compliance for these issues in the language services area are problematic on a host of levels.
We recently learned of a hospital in the country that was in the middle of a Joint Commission audit and the over the phone interpreter firm that they used was down several times with no access to interpreters. No service whatsoever.
This is like the 911 emergency services network being down. It never happens! It can’t happen!
Yet with a provider in our space— it regretably did.
Say what you want, but you simply can not afford to have interruptions in your interpreter services ….not the least of which when you are in the middle of an audit. Off to a very close aside, mind you, are potential Title VI violations and the liability that comes with that.
At Language Line Services, we are proud to say we spend millions of dollars each year on our technology to be “mission critical”.
We want to ensure that in times of crises we are always there.
Next year is our 30th Anniversary in honoring and celebrating the founding of our over the phone interpretation industry in the United States.
After countless number of emergencies, National Disasters, Horrific Tornadoes, assaults on our Homeland, Regional Disasters….we are always there.
And our promise is simple — we will always be.
If you need reliable interpretation service….we welcome you to our family of over 5,000 trained employees.
When security, patient safety, HIPAA and Joint Commission compliance, reliability and financial stability matter —the members of the Language Line Services global family are here for you 24/7/365.
Mission critical is our mandate. Global Excellence is our passion.
On behalf of the more than 5,000 dedicated Language Line Services employed interpreters at our global family of excellence, please call the experts.
For more information on our company, please visit us at www.languageline.com or for immediate response please email us at pr@languageline.com
Do you know the risks of hiring untrained interpreters? #senatorharkin #sensherrodbrown #irsnews September 2, 2011
Posted by Louis F. Provenzano, Jr. in Internal Revenue Service, Joint Commission, Langage Line Services, Language Compliance, Misclassification / Tax Evasion.Tags: Commissioner Shulman IRS, Debarment Officials of the United States Government, Debarment Procedures, Employee misclassification, Federal Debarment, GAO, IRS, Misclassification, Senator Brown, Senator Feinstein, Senator Harkin, Senator Kerry, TIGTA, U.S. General Accounting Office, White House
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Language Line Services has had numerous discussions with the IRS and other authorities on this issue of misclassification. It’s time to again provide the facts!
As I promised, I would disclose as much information as I could regarding our industry and the practices of our competitors cheating the government out of millions of Federal and State Tax dollars.
Since investigations are well underway with Federal and State authorities, we have been given clearance to start releasing redacted versions of our case.
Specifically, what you will see very shortly is the evidence we have to prove that almost all of the company’s within the over-the-phone interpreting industry have broken just about every Federal and State law. (not the least of which deceived their customer base)
Corporate, non-profit and governmental organizations who are required to comply with legal, Joint Commission , and other Privacy Act requirements (HIPAA, CMS, others) must pay close attention to this.
Most of the Over the phone interpreting providers don’t pay taxes. They can’t tell the IRS they train or monitor their contractors as they will be liable for substantial penalties and back taxes. Yet they tell their customers quite a different story in order to win business.
Takeaway? It’s going to be a lose-lose proposition for the tax evaders among us.
If they lie to their customers that they don’t train, monitor and supervise their interpreters, they lose their dwindling contracts. If they tell the IRS they “do” train, monitor and supervise, they will get properly dinged for unpaid back taxes.
We have every competitive Request for Proposal (“RFP”) we could locate under the Freedom of Information Act. We will soon release the “best of the best”, but netting it out, the situation looks like this:
Just about every “RFP” we got our hands on (by the way, this information is free), revealed a story that would suggest our competition trains, monitors, and supervises their interpreters. Of course, they had to do this to win the business! As good corporate citizens we have turned all of this evidence over to the IRS and the US Department of Treasury.
You might be interested to know that one provider was even so bold to state that their call centers and training centers mentioned in the official tender did not even exist, totally misrepresenting their business model. Yet they were able to “snag” a customer from us. (Watch for the Federal and State lawsuit. This is will be a good one).
At Language Line Services, we strive to tell the truth. Well over 97% of the over-the-phone interpreting minutes are handled by our trained, supervised, qualified, respected *employees*. Our business model is to employ, train, test and monitor our interpreters, just as our customers expect of us.
We’re more than willing to go to the courts to prove our point. We have the evidence and the proof that the Government was looking for. You are more than welcome to get copies. Feel free to send me an email on this blog. www.louisprovenzano.com
Buyers of interpretation services must be increasingly careful with how they select over-the-phone interpreters. Many of our clients who briefly used another language service provider returned to Language Line Services simply because they did not want to assume the liability of co-employment or run into compliance and legal complications.
Like it or not, this is a real issue. Just ask the IRS.
So the tax cheats need to be put on notice–yet again. Stop cheating the Federal Government. Stop changing your internal contracts and policies to hide your ways. If you can believe this, one over-the-phone provider actually asked their independent contractors to “destroy previous training material”. I mean seriously—as if the IRS wouldn’t soon learn about that.
Your fraudulent game is up and the Feds have all the evidence they need to prosecute the criminals.
We also have sufficient independent contractors working for our competitors that filed their S-8 forms with the Internal Revenue Service to determine their employee status. ( For information from the IRS click here ) As an interesting aside, it was interesting to see how many of the independent contractors working for competitors have been following my blog and were so willing to “report” their employers for tax fraud. (Guess our message of “doing the right thing” is working! )
To conclude the only way to run an over-the-phone interpretation company is with an employee model. Offering trained, scheduled, monitored, quality interpreters is the only way this industry can be operated. Any other way is an absolute lie–either to the IRS or to the client.
As we have stated 30 years ago, the only model for the industry is the one we created, and this is with employed interpreters.
I will be on the Hill testifying about the new bills under legislation in October. CNBC will broadcast all my comments live.
Tax evasion is a Federal Crime.
I will repeat my initial posting. I will not stop until I see the entire foul play stop and the Federal Authorities do their job to correct this egregious behavior. The Government is watching. The Government is concerned. But more importantly, from the CEO of the founder and largest player in this space, I only have a few words to say.
Stop cheating. Stop evading Federal Taxes. And please, for patient safety purposes, tell your clients you don’t train your interpreters so at least they can protect their patients responsibly and hire “trained” interpreters.
For those interested, Freedom of Information Act requests about our work are always available from the Federal Government.
I expect my letter to be posted very soon.
Best,
Louis
cc: Misclassification list
Louis F. Provenzano, Jr.
President and Chief Executive Officer
Language Line Services
Hospital Administrators, Compliance Officers, Language Access Leaders and Risk Managers July 1, 2011
Posted by Louis F. Provenzano, Jr. in Interpretation, Interpreters, Joint Commission, Language Access, Language Compliance, Language Legislation, Medical Certification, Patient Safety.Tags: Department of Health, Joint Commission, Language Access, Language Access Regulations, patient safety
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The Joint Commission’s new and revised requirements to advance effective communication, cultural competence and patient-centered care became effective January 1, 2011 with accreditation decisions to be made in January 2012. As part of these requirements, hospitals will be expected to meet several elements of performance related to improving the communication between
providers and their diverse patient populations and to carefully review its current processes and procedures and make the
necessary adjustment to ensure compliance.
We invite you to spend an hour with, Marty Conroy, a former New York State healthcare regulator who will:
- Speak about the key areas regulators look at when conducting a
compliance audit - Share key tools, resources and solutions you need, to be in
compliance - Share best practices
- Conduct a Q&A to address any concerns related to the topic
Date: Tuesday 7/19/2011
Time: 10:00 am Pacific / 11:00 am Mountain / 12:00 pm Central / 1:00pm Eastern
Topic: Regulatory Readiness – Ensuring Compliance with Regulatory Requirements for Effective Communication
Speaker: Martin Conroy, former Regulator and Director of the Division of Acute and Primary Care Services at the New York State Department of Health, with 37 years of public service responsible for the regulatory oversight of hospitals and clinics, including language access
Register at languagelinespeakers@languageline.com - Confirmation and dial-in information will be distributed upon registration
Hosted by Language Line Services, Language Access Center for Excellence – contact janders@languageline.comif you would like to request a speaker for your organization.
Identifying Native Language First Step in Meeting New Healthcare Accreditation Standards, By Louis F. Provenzano, Jr — CEO Language Line Services February 11, 2011
Posted by Louis F. Provenzano, Jr. in Interpreters, Joint Commission, Langage Line Services, Language Access, Language Compliance, Language Legislation, Language Line University.Tags: careers in language, IMIA, Joint Commission, Langage Line Services, Language Access, National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters, Office of Civil Rights
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Identifying Native Language First Step in Meeting New Healthcare Accreditation Standards
By Louis F. Provenzano, Jr. –CEO, Language Line Services
When The Joint Commission’s new standards for hospital accreditation based on language access take full effect a year from now, many hospitals might not make the cut and could lose critical funding. That’s because to qualify for public funds, Medicaid, Medicare and other government-financed programs, healthcare organizations must comply with federal and state regulations that mandate the provision of language services.
Until now, the regulations have often been loosely followed, leading The Joint Commission to implement, new, more formalized standards. A year-long pilot started in January 2011, and full implementation is scheduled for January 1, 2012. The Joint Commission is an independent, non-profit organization that surveys and accredits hospitals and other healthcare institutions across the country via unscheduled accreditation surveys.
A new report, “The New Joint Commission Standards for Patient-Centered Care,” co-authored by two former language-expert hospital administrators, Oscar Arocha and Deborah Yvette Moore, in conjunction with Language Line Services calls attention to the lack of compliance with language access requirements for limited English proficient patients. Arocha is a 25-year industry veteran, former director of the largest interpreter services department in the nation at Boston Medical Center and currently Senior Executive, Global Strategic Initiatives at Language Line Services. Moore served 32 years as manager of the Parkland Health and Hospital System and is a lifelong advocate of patients’ rights.
Oscar and Deborah will be offering advice in this blog to help assure hospitals meet the new standards in advance of implementation in January. Here is their first tip which focuses on identifying the patient’s “preferred language” for discussing his/her healthcare needs. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section, and they will be answered by Oscar and Deborah in future installments.
What’s the first step in meeting the new language requirements?
Healthcare organizations must develop a systematic approach to consistently collect patients’ language preferences in order to provide effective communication for non-English speaking patients, as well as those with limited English proficiency. Identifying the preferred language of every patient should occur at the entry point of the organization.
This requires healthcare facilities to train the intake staff on how to enter the preferred language information into patient record systems. All systems should have the preferred language question as a required field. This way, intake representatives will always be prompted to ask the question instead of by-passing this section.
Both preferred language and dialect must be recorded in the patient record database. And, if the patient is deaf or hard of hearing and does not use American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate, this too should be noted as there will be a need for two interpreters to communicate with this patient – a Certified Deaf Interpreter (CDI) for hand gestures, lip reading, etc., and an ASL interpreter who will capture what the CDI interpreter is signing and interpret that into English.
In the healthcare industry, effective language programs are a matter of patient safety, and sometimes, life and death. Identifying communication barriers improves patient care, ensures they will not have to repeat their information at every service point in the care continuum, improves accuracy, reduces safety issues and increases continuity of care. All of which also is good for reducing medical costs for us all.
More than 50 million people in the United States speak a language other than English at home, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau survey. The Joint Commission has decided that it’s time for healthcare institutions throughout the country to get serious about listening to patients in their native language. Identifying which language to listen in is just the first of many steps.
– Oscar Arocha and Deborah Yvette Moore
Louis Provenzano, Jr. is Chief Executive Officer of Language Line Services, the world’s leading and largest provider of healthcare language-based services.
Open Letter to Hospital Compliance Officers: Questions to Ask as Standards Enter Pilot Phase January 7, 2011
Posted by Louis F. Provenzano, Jr. in Interpreters, Joint Commission, Language Access, Language Legislation, Language Line University.Tags: Joint Commission, Language Access, Language Compliance
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My article on Huffington Post appears here and below: click here
_________________________________________________________
Open Letter to Hospital Compliance Officers: Questions to Ask as Standards Enter Pilot Phase
New and revised Joint Commission requirements for language and interpretation standards took effect this month on a year-long pilot basis for healthcare providers nationwide. The aim is to improve patient-provider communication and ensure patient safety. Among the requirements: Proof of interpreter training and fluency competence, which is often difficult to produce as the number of spoken languages and dialects continues to grow.
Most healthcare providers use a combination of on-site and third-party over-the-phone interpreters for more than 170 languages as well as American Sign Language (ASL) for deaf and hard-of-hearing patients. Nearly every language service provider operates under a business model based on using independent contractors. By definition, contractors cannot be professionally trained, scheduled, supervised or monitored by the language service provider contracting with them. Many hospitals are likely to find no evidence of training processes or records for these contractors, nor will they find ongoing interpreter education provided by the company for which they work.
Through collaboration with multiple regulatory, healthcare provider and government stake holders, Language Line Services has developed a support program and tools to aid hospitals in their compliance with the new standards. The ultimate goal is to help hospitals guarantee their language service partners are able to provide the proof and documentation needed to ensure compliance with the new standards.
At a minimum, hospitals and healthcare organizations should be asking themselves: Do we have a clear understanding of the new and revised requirements as they relate to our organization? Have we identified our current level of readiness? Where are the gaps, and how serious are they? What could be done to close those gaps?
More specific questions from an exhaustive checklist about the new standards include: How many hours of training does the language service provider (LSP) furnish its interpreters? What does the training cover? Can the LSP describe how the processes used for training their contract vs. non-contract interpreters differ (if any)? How are the interpreters monitored? How is their performance evaluated? How often?
Healthcare organizations know that if they fall short on any Joint Commission standards they risk jeopardizing access to Medicare and Medicaid funds, as well as incurring added fees to resolve issues and reestablish compliance. Hospitals should be prepared to provide curriculum and credentials for both the interpreters and their trainers. Administrators may be asked to show proof of medical interpreters’ competency, documentation for quality assurance, training and continuing education programs, and provide a copy of their most recent job recruitment description.
Documentation on criminal background checks could be requested as well, which again is complicated by the use of contractors where requirements and documentation are typically informal. It’s important to note that contractors themselves are not the problem. They often are victims misclassified as contractors despite working as many or more hours as full-time employees, without the benefits of the same training, healthcare coverage, overtime pay or paid time off. Meanwhile, their organizations evade millions of dollars in unemployment insurance taxes, workers compensation premiums, social security contributions, administrative payroll costs and other U.S. Department of Labor regulations.
The new Joint Commission standards move out of the pilot phase and begin impacting accreditation decisions on January 1, 2012. Still, now is the time to ask the right questions and make sure healthcare providers throughout the country are prepared to handle the more stringent requirements.
Louis Provenzano, Jr. is President and Chief Operating Officer of Language Line Services, the world’s leading and largest provider of healthcare language-based services.
