AB 505, as amended, Nazarian. Medi-Cal: managed care: language assistance services.
Existing law provides for the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care services. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid Program provisions. Under existing law, one of the methods by which Medi-Cal services are provided is pursuant to contracts with various types of managed care plans.
This bill would require the department to require allbegin delete Medi-Calend delete managed care plans contracting with the departmentbegin insert to provide Medi-Cal servicesend insert to provide language assistance services, which includes interpretation and translation
services, to limited-English-proficient enrollees, as defined.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: no.
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
Section 14029.91 is added to the Welfare and
2Institutions Code, to read:
(a) The department shall require allbegin delete Medi-Calend delete
4 managed care plans contracting with the departmentbegin insert to provide
5Medi-Cal servicesend insert to provide language assistance services to
6limited-English-proficient (LEP) enrollees in the following manner:
7(1) Interpretation services shall be provided in any language on
8a 24-hour basis at all points of service.
9(2) Translation services shall be provided to the language groups
10identified by the department.
11(b) The department shall determine when an LEP population
12meets the requirement for translation services using one of the
13following numeric thresholds:
14(1) Three thousandbegin insert LEPend insert persons eligible for Medi-Cal reside
15in the plan’s service area, or 1,000 LEP persons eligible for
16Medi-Cal reside in a singlebegin delete zip codeend deletebegin insert ZIP Codeend insert.
17(2) One thousand five hundredbegin insert LEPend insert
persons eligible for
18Medi-Cal in two contiguousbegin delete zip codesend deletebegin insert ZIP Codesend insert reside within a
19health plan’s service area.
20(c) The department shall make this determination annually and
21instruct plans, by means of incorporating the requirement into plan
22contracts, all-plan letters, or similar instructions, the language
23groups that meet the numeric thresholds.
24(d) For purposes of this section, a person is “limited English
25proficient” if he or she speaks English less than very well.
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