Tacoma-based MultiCare health system has entered into a settlement agreement after an investigation found a lack of appropriate interpreter services for two patients with hearing and visual impairments.
U.S. Attorney for Western Washington Tessa Gorman announced Friday that MultiCare will “change procedures” and set aside more than $2 million to compensate patients who did not receive such services, a violation of civil rights.
Multicare, in a statement Friday evening sent to The News Tribune in response to questions, stated via email that it is “committed to providing robust translation and interpretation services to every member of the communities we serve, inclusive of all language support needs. We want all patients to be able to communicate with their care teams and have a clear understanding of their medical care.”
An investigation involving the U.S. Attorney’s Office and U.S. Health and Human Services revealed that the two patients did not receive appropriate interpreter services before and after surgery.
The patients will each receive $100,000, and family members of each patient who had to serve as interpreters for the patients are each being compensated with $40,000, according to a news release Friday.
“This settlement with MultiCare not only compensates those whose rights were violated, it also ensures better care in the future for patients who are deaf and deaf-blind,” Gorman said in the release.
Gorman added that the health system will assign a point person “responsible for providing appropriate assistive devices and ensuring the health system has resources, including three interpreter firms, who can be called on to ensure effective communication with all patients.”
MultiCare also will provide training to staff “about assessing and meeting the communication needs” for such patients, the release stated, as well as make public information about its available interpretive services.
The agreement includes “reporting every four months to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and HHS about requests for assistive devices or interpreters and how those needs were met,” the release stated, and is in place for three years.
Details of case and new fund established
An investigation was launched in 2020 after the U.S. Attorney’s Office received a complaint that a patient with visual and hearing impairments did not receive interpretive assistance “at multiple appointments both before and after surgery,” the release stated.
“While that investigation was underway, a second deaf-blind patient reported that his rights were also violated when MultiCare failed to provide appropriate communication aids both before and after his surgery,” the release added.
In both cases, relatives accompanying the patients stood in as interpreters.
The release added, “While not admitting fault, MultiCare acknowledges that there may be additional patients whose rights under the (Americans with Disabilities Act) were violated.”
As a result, the health system will launch a $2 million fund and “seek to identify any patients who failed to receive appropriate interpreter services,” the release stated.
A third-party claims administrator will then “allocate the settlement funds based on the harm suffered by each complainant,” the release added.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office will review the allocations after the claims have been submitted and reviewed.
In addition to the settlements to claimants, MultiCare also will pay $95,000 to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
MultiCare, in its email Friday, told The News Tribune that it had recently “significantly expanded our language support services in a number of significant ways.”
According to the health system, those improvements include centralizing its interpreter services program, adding 14 ADA coordinators and a data analyst, expanding its services support availability to 24 hours-seven days a week, and Implementing updated mandatory staff training regarding language access services.
The health system said it also is deploying “Auxiliary Aid Kits — a reusable Pocket Talker (portable hearing aid), magnifier, whiteboard, and flashcards for patients with hearing or vision loss, and/or speech impediments — to our patient care areas.”
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, this is the eighth such settlement in the past eight years in Washington tied to failure to provide interpreter services for patients in a health care setting.
Other such cases involved PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver, University of Washington Medical Center — Northwest in Seattle, and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Washington among others, according to Friday’s release.
