The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2023 - 10

Read ATA's letter to
the Oregon State
Senate Committee
on Health Care
February 17, 2023
The Honorable Rev. Dr. Deb Patterson
Chair, Oregon State Senate Committee on Health Care
The Honorable Cedric Hayden
Vice Chair, Oregon State Senate Committee on Health Care
Dear Senator Patterson and Senator Hayden:
A
s the largest
professional
association of
interpreters and translators
in the United States, many
of whom are health care
interpreters, the American
Translators Association
(ATA) is the professional
home of more than 8,500
members who work in over
90 languages.
We are writing to express
our opposition to Oregon
Senate Bill 584. This bill
would task the Oregon
Health Authority (OHA)
with setting up a web-based
platform to support the
scheduling and payment of
interpreters in health care
settings in Oregon.
While the spirit of the
bill is good, SB 584 fails
to take into account the
reality of how health care
interpreting is delivered. All
states depend on a national
network of interpreters to
provide coverage for the
more than 300 languages
that require interpretation.
Due to the shortage of health
care interpreters in the U.S.,
no single state has enough
state-based interpreters
to cover the federal- and
state-mandated language
access rights of its LimitedEnglish-Proficient
(LEP),
Language Preference other
than English (LPOE), and
Deaf and Hard of Hearing
(DHH) communities. It
has been shown that these
communities suffer poorer
health outcomes when
qualified interpreting is
not provided.
In 2021, more than
two million health care
interpreting encounters
occurred for Oregonian
patients in more than 150
languages, in every county
of the state. The Oregon
registry of interpreters
currently includes fewer
than 40 languages, meaning
interpreters for more than
100 languages needed to
be sourced from outside
state lines. To satisfy this
need, both in Oregon and
nationally, most health
care providers rely on
over-the-phone and
video remote interpreting
services, in addition to
on-site interpreting where
available. Language service
companies (LSCs) can
provide qualified, remote
medical interpreters within
less than a minute of
the provider or patient's
request. This requires a
network and experience
that the OHA simply cannot
build overnight. Shifting
the burden of providing
this level of service to
the state government
without adequate resources
could have devastating
consequences.
The intended goal behind
this bill of improving
working conditions and
wages for health care
interpreters is laudable
and one that should not
be abandoned. However,
its scope is limited to the
very small percentage of
interpreters who provide
10 The ATA Chronicle | March/April 2023
www.atanet.org
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1955368/ http://www.atanet.org
The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2023

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