Don’t Speak English Well? You Have the Right to a Medical Interpreter

How to find a medical interpreter

The responsibility for finding an interpreter falls on health care providers. But patients can be proactive with a few simple steps, Fitzwater says.

A patient may request a medical interpreter ahead of a visit and should give providers as much information as possible about a preferred language or native region, particularly if the person speaks a dialect or an Indigenous language.

States such as Oregon, where Fitzwater’s company is based, are seeing a rise in speakers of Indigenous languages from Mexico and Central America, she says. Those languages are completely different from Spanish, the dominant language of those regions.

Even a patient with a good understanding of English may want to request an interpreter, clarifying that the helper is there for additional support if needed, she says.

“Interpreters should allow for the autonomy of the patient to communicate however they want,” Fitzwater says. “Nobody’s going to force them to use an interpreter, but oftentimes it is better to have that assistance there and make sure that [the information] is as accurate as possible.”

How to find language help for Medicare services

Beyond a doctor’s office, a clinic or a hospital, older adults with limited English skills who are eligible for Medicare benefits can request free language assistance to sign up and use the insurance program, Fitzwater says.

The Social Security Administration handles initial Medicare sign-ups. To see the agency’s entire website in Spanish, go to ssa.gov/es.

To switch between English and Spanish, click on the Español link in the upper right corner of the desktop website or at the top of the mobile website. When you’re looking at the site in Spanish, click on English in the same place to see English-language material.

Some information is available online in 16 additional languages.

The Medicare website offers some materials in more than a dozen languages as well as braille. Also available are large-print, data and audio files; relay services; and teletypewriter (TTY) communications for the deaf and hard of hearing.

The website es.medicare.gov offers all of Medicare’s English-language material in Spanish and allows a downloadable Medicare Y Usted (Medicare & You) guide. To switch between English and Spanish, click on the Cambiar a español (Change to Spanish) link in the upper right corner of the desktop website or tap the ☰ Menu on phones and select Cambiar a español.

The site includes information on Part D prescription, Medigap and Medicare Advantage private insurance plans that you’ll need to investigate when you sign up for Medicare or during open enrollment Oct. 15 to Dec. 7 annually.

Beneficiaries may also call 1-800-MEDICARE to request an interpreter.

The State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) website has an option at the bottom of each page to choose one of Google Translate’s more than 200 languages instead of English. Each subsequent link within the SHIP site will lead to a translated page, but links to outside sources will be in English.

The program — a confidential, free and unbiased resource for Medicare beneficiaries and their families and caregivers that the federal government finances — offers a one-page fact sheet in eight languages, as well as English. It outlines how to enroll in Medicare and how local SHIPs can help.

You can also call 877-839-2675 and say “Medicare” to be connected to your local SHIP. Over the phone or in person, SHIP counselors often use translation services, and some offices have bilingual staff or volunteers.

The National Asian Pacific Center on Aging’s (NAPCA) call-in line helps older Asian American adults understand Medicare and other government programs such as:

• Affordable Care Act private health insurance marketplaces
• The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)
• Medicaid, government health insurance for those with limited income
• Social Security retirement and disability benefits
• The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps
• Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a safety-net program for those with limited resources
• Vaccinations to prevent or lessen the severity of diseases

Support is available in Cantonese, Korean, Mandarin and Vietnamese, as well as English. Each language has a different phone number on the nonprofit organization’s website.

AARP’s Medicare stories and videos are available in Spanish by clicking on the AARP en Español link in the upper right corner of the English language website. Click on Salud or Medicare in the menu across the top to go to either the Medicare or Health topic areas.

Give ample notice, especially as providers’ finances are squeezed

While federal law requires a medical interpreter be made available to those who need one, some health care providers that rely on federal money have seen grants frozen and bilingual staffers laid off, according to KFF Health News. That may mean more reliance on remote translation teams.

The rarer a language is in the United States, the more time a health care provider may need to find proper interpretation, Fitzwater says. So, just like with many aspects of going to the doctor’s office, planning is important.

Even with language assistance, emotional factors, financial worries and unfamiliarity with the health care system can add to a patient’s stress, Cerezo-Allen says. She advises patients and their caregivers to take a notebook and a pen, write down information in an understandable way and ask the doctor, nurse or interpreter to repeat information as many times as needed if it isn’t clear.

“Being able to communicate, especially when there’s illness involved, is part of defending a person’s human rights,” she says. “In the medical field, it’s part of human dignity, and when you block that access, it’s like telling the person, ‘You don’t speak this language, and you don’t matter.’ That’s not so.”