ensure that the diverse beneficiaries of the Healthy Families Program (HFP) and Medi-Cal Managed Care program (MMC) are provided linguistically accessible and culturally appropriate medical care by codifying and making more uniform the existing language assistance and cultural competency requirements now placed on the health plans participating in HFP and MMC. the same language assistance and cultural competency requirements apply to all health plans participating in HFP; ensure that the same language assistance and cultural competency requirements apply to all health plans in all counties participating in MMCrefine and make more uniform the language assistance and cultural competency requirements between HFP and MMC so that HFP and MMC beneficiaries receive the same level of linguistically accessible and culturally appropriate services and so that the health plans and medical care providers participating in both HFP and MMC may more easily comply with the requirements.
require the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board (MRMIB) and the Department of Health Services (DHS) to submit annual reports on the status of the HFP and MMC health plans’ implementation of the language assistance and cultural competency requirements.
The language assistance and cultural competency requirements now appear in the contracts privately negotiated between the health plans and the state agencies responsible for HFP and MMC, MRMIB and DHS, respectively, as well as in policy letters issued by the DHS.
Eighty percent of the three million MMC beneficiaries are racial/ethnic minorities; nearly 45% speak a primary language other than English. Eighty-four percent of the 520,000 HFP subscribers are racial/ethnic minorities; almost 50% speak a primary language other than English.
· Without codification, the language assistance and cultural competency requirements that now appear could arbitrarily be weakened in the future, putting at risk tens of thousands of California beneficiaries who rely on linguistically accessible and culturally appropriate medical care.
· HFP and MMC beneficiaries currently receive different levels of language assistance and cultural competency services.
· The current level of the HFP and MMC health plans’ compliance with the language assistance and cultural competency requirements in their contracts is unclear.
Status: Introduced February 22, 2002; to be heard in Assembly Committee on Health on April 23, 2002.
Sponsor: A coalition of groups including the Asian Pacific Islander Health Forum, Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, National Health Law Program, and Asian and Pacific American Legal Center, Fresno Health Consumer Center, California Primary Care Association.
Staff: Carlos A. Machado, 319-2016.