What Should Be the Scope of Long-Term Care Organizations’ Obligations to Offer Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services to Patients?

Abstract

Limited access to health services, decreased quality of care, and worse health outcomes are well documented barriers people with limited English proficiency (LEP) face in US health care. Laws enacted since the 1964 Civil Rights Act recognize such barriers and have helped generate demand for culturally respectful health service provision, assessment of cross-cultural relations, and adaptation of services that fail to meet persons’ needs and improve quality of life. Yet, as this commentary on a case considers, even with legal protections for language services for patients with LEP, long-term care facilities face limited resources and thus have limited capacity to offer such services.