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Over-the-phone Interpreting Services for Pharmacies
To supplement our on-demand translation solutions for pharmacies, RxTran offers pharmacies the telephone interpretation service. The service enables pharmacists to get immediate access to trained interpreters in over a dozen languages on the 24/7, 365 days a year basis.
If a customer who speaks little or no English has questions, the pharmacist can dial a toll-free number and within seconds be able to communicate to the customer using a dual handset telephone and a qualified interpreter.
Regulatory Requirements for Phone Interpreting in Pharmacies
All jurisdictions that have specific regulations on the provision of language services in pharmacies for LEP patients stipulate that pharmacies need to provide some form of interpreting (oral translation) service to LEP patients unless the pharmacy staff is competent in speaking the primary language spoken by the customer.
New York Requirements
The agreement signed by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo with New York pharmacy chains concerning provision of language services in pharmacies to individuals with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) stipulates that the pharmacies
"shall employ telephonic interpreter resources or pharmacy staff ... to verbally communicate the instructions for use to the customer in his/her primary language."
If telephone interpreting service is used, then:
"The telephonic interpretation service shall have available trained interpreters who speak all of the languages that [the pharmacy] can reasonably expect its LEP Customers to speak and shall be accessible to all pharmacy staff during pharmacy business hours.
"Pharmacy staff shall access the service as necessary to ensure verbal communications between pharmacy staff and LEP customers take place in the customer's primary language. In order to ensure proper provision of simultaneous interpretation services, the pharmacy shall be equipped with either dual-handset telephone or any other configuration of telephonic equipment to allow for simultaneous interpretation services."
New York City law further clarifies that
"Competent oral interpretation shall mean oral communication in which a person acting as an interpreter comprehends a spoken message and re-expresses that message accurately and objectively in another language, utilizing all necessary pharmaceutical – and health-related terminology.
RxTran Phone Interpreting Service
Our pharmacy phone interpreting service fits all the requirements for pharmacy language services. Our interpreters have:
- Proven skills in phone interpreting
- Fluency in English and the foreign language their interpreting
- Knowledge of medical terminology in English and the foreign language they are working in
- Knowledge of culture-specific medical practices in the US
For More Information
To get more information about our pharmacy language services, call Evan (617-621-0940 x. 141 or 800-240-0246) or email at info@RxTran.com to find out how RxTran can help you provide a more comprehensive set of services to your pharmacy clients.
