The Background
Otolaryngology Associates (OA) specializes in comprehensive Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) care through 13 full-service medical offices in Central Indiana. They offer a variety of services including treatments for allergies, sinusitis, pediatric ENT, cosmetic procedures, and audiological care. Their clients include individuals of all ages and linguistic backgrounds, with a large cohort of patients who speak the Burmese language and many other languages also originating from the country now known as Myanmar (FKA Burma).
The Challenge
One of OA’s 13 medical offices is situated in an area of Indianapolis with a high population of patients who speak Burmese or one of several other languages spoken in Myanmar. About 10 years ago, LTC learned that OA needed to reduce their expenditure on the required interpretation services, remain compliant with the law, and still be able to provide the same level of care to this patient population. Due to the nature of the interpretation industry’s standard 2-hour minimum charge, OA was overpaying for interpreter services unnecessarily. With their volume of interpreter needs for this family of languages, OA couldn’t sustain paying for 2 hours of interpreting for every appointment that may only last 30-40 minutes.
The Solution
LTC proposed stacking appointments for these languages back-to-back within the 2-hour window of an interpreter appointment. To top that, LTC then proposed blocking interpreter schedules to include 4-hour and 8-hour days. Multiple physicians within OA coordinated their Burmese patient appointments to fall on days of the week when an interpreter was guaranteed to already be available within the office. To provide flexibility of scheduling for the physicians and patients, these half-day and full-day interpreter appointment blocks were plotted week to week on a rolling basis to include all days of the week that a patient might need to be scheduled.
The Results
Otolaryngology Associates is now able to see 20-30 Burmese-speaking patients in a day, utilizing the same interpreter who is scheduled for 4 or 8 hours onsite. This patient appointment stacking and block scheduling of interpreters reduced OA’s expenditure on interpreter services by tens of thousands of dollars annually. Instead of 20 patient appointments costing 40-60 hours of interpreting in a week, the same 20 patients could now cost only 8-12 hours of interpreting in a week.
About LTC
LTC Language Solutions is a language service provider for local and national companies, organizations, government agencies, and individuals since 1993. LTC provides language training, cross cultural training, interpretation, translation, repatriation, language assessments, and interpreter skills training. LTC has gained a reputation for high-quality, customized services provided through long-term relationships, having some of the same clients for over 25 years.
