On January 1, 2009, more than 100 licensed health insurance plans in California will be required to provide improved language access for members with limited English proficiency.

The number of languages required by the new policy depends on the number of members the plan has. For example, plans with a million or more members would be required to translate into the top two languages other than English, plus any additional languages used by 0.75 percent or 15,000 enrollees, whichever is less.

There are at least 224 languages spoken in California by some estimates. 2006 U.S. Census data reveals that in Los Angeles County alone, there are nineteen languages spoken by 15,000 or more people - Spanish, Tagalog, Chinese, Korean, Armenian, Vietnamese, Persian, Japanese, Cantonese, Russian, French, Mandarin, Arabic, Khmer, German, Formosan, Thai, Italian, and Hebrew.

For more information about our language expertise and professional medical translation services, contact us.