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.
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