Sign Language Interpreters

This is an excellent follow up. Doing a bit of research I would say no.

In fact if the economic burden is too great, you actually don't need to do it all. But, the caviot, is that if your office is located in a hospital or hospital facility you may.

If your office is in a free standing office building, privately owned NOT by the hospital according to this article, (https://www.justdigit.org/are-doctors-or-hospitals-required-to-provide-live-interpreters-for-deaf-patients/) you may be off the hook entirely.

This article also supports that you may provide this service remotely.

What it does not say is that you are ok to charge the patient the $75.00 fee that the remote service or whatever the in person service fee may be.

It simply states you don't have to provide the service if the economic burden is too great. I would suggest that your practice paying a $75.00 fee for an office visit that reimburses you $35.00, that would be an economic hardship.

Bottom line here: Check this out with an attorney who is well versed in ADA.

Your state society should be able to provide you with FREE advice on this issue.

As this issue is not just your question alone, but everyone's.

If a patient specifically requests an in-person interpreter, do we have to provide one? Or can we just let them know, we only use virtual services. I truly appreciate all your recommendations and advice!

I would agree with David Freedman. Hospitals often have very long lists of these types of services, because they usually have diversification of staff who speak multiple languages or are hearing impaired. However, small office based practices dont have this at their physical disposal. What they share is that there will always be a patient who doesn't speak a langugae that either a staff member speaks or who can sign. Thus the on line availability is an option. There is a fee to the practice which cannot be passed onto the patient. Use the referral provided by Dr. Freedman or Google it for a list of service providers. Lastly, when the patient makes the appointment, even if using the phone TTD system, you can always ask if they can bring a family member with them. This serves not only to help work to communicate the information, but will serve as a second person to whom you and your staff can communicate. This can reduce the great % loss of information patients lose by the time they hit your exit sign.

Thank you for the information!

The ADA requires medical practices to provide "reasonable accommodation" to those with disabilities. What defines a reasonable accommodation? For deaf patients, we first offer extra clinic time, and provide pen/paper and try to perform the visit with a written visit (of course documenting it and saving the pages). We feel this is quite "reasonable" and meets the ADA test. If the patient refuses that, instead of a fight, we use www.jeenie.com. Like Dr. Freedman's suggestion, they can do different types of interpretive services. It's about $2 or $3 per minute, depending on whether you are using sign language or other services. We do not offer "live in person" ASL any longer.

Sarah: This is an often misunderstood concept, it does not have to be in person. There is a company that we use in our practice that works not only for deaf patients but translation for languages. Check out https://www.cyracom.com/.