 Promoting quality health care for every patient.
Under the Affordable Care Act, it is expected that more than 10 million new LEP (Limited English Proficient) patients will have access to health insurance and health care services.
By improving your ability to more effectively interact with patients of different cultures and socio-economic backgrounds, particularly those with limited English proficiency, HNS' Cultural Competency Program helps you provide the highest quality of care to every patient, regardless of race, ethnicity, or cultural background.
What is cultural competence?
Cultural competence is defined as the ability of providers and organizations to effectively deliver health care services that meet the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of patients.
The ability to accept differences and communicate effectively
across barriers of language and culture directly affects patient
safety, patient treatment and treatment outcomes.
HNS Solutions
To assist those individuals with limited English skills in locating a physician in their community who speaks their language, HNS publishes additional languages spoken by network physicians in the HNS online Provider Directory. This information is also provided to our contracted payors for inclusion in their provider directories.
If you speak a language other than English and wish to have the language published in HNS and payor provider directories, please click here, complete the form with the additional language you speak, and fax or email to HNS.
To assist those individuals with limited English reading skills, HNS also provides many of our clinical and administrative forms in Spanish, including but not limited to, outcome assessment forms, informed consent form, HIPAA Privacy Notice and patient waiver forms. Additionally, the "Member" section of the HNS website is also available in Spanish.
HNS also provides guidelines, strategies and additional resources to help you become more culturally competent.
To help improve communication with patients with limited English speaking skills, HNS provides free, in-office interpretation services through our contract with CyraCom, an international language interpretation services organization. CyraCom provides interpretive services in over 200 languages.
Cultural competence is not an isolated aspect of medical care, but an important component of overall excellence in health care delivery. It is also important to note that understanding cultural differences not only can improve the effectiveness of the treatment the patient receives, it can also help safeguard against potential liability and malpractice claims.
For additional information, click on the links below:
Why is Cultural Competency Important?
Understanding Different Cultures
Best Practices - Cultural Competency
Interpretive Services (CyraCom)
HNS Forms (en español)
Notify HNS of Additional Languages Spoken
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Health Network Solutions, Inc. (HNS) stands alone as the oldest and largest chiropractic network in the Southeast. 