Translating Member Letters for State-Managed Health Plans
A Year in ReviewSummary
In 2021, new regulations from California’s Department of Healthcare Services (DHCS) put Medi-Cal managed health plans in a challenging position. To stay in compliance, they needed to quickly pivot to delivering all Notice of Action (NOA) and Notice of Appeal Resolution (NAR) letters in translation and within a 72-hour window. While this timeframe is ample for short written translation of member materials, the change mandated that these particular member notices also be printed and mailed within 3 days of a decision. With significant increases in overhead costs on the horizon, Avantpage’s managed care plans turned to us for help building a solution.
We wrote about the steps we took during this rollout in 2022. To mark the anniversary of these DHCS regulations coming into force, we crunched some numbers and looked back at what we and our state managed health plans had achieved.
High Volumes of Member Materials Translated
4 million words, 17,000 member letters, 2500 projects, and 11 languages translated in the first year.
The key to success: The technologies we were already using to maximize the output of our linguistic teams meant that absorbing these increased volumes was easy to accomplish with minimal lead time.
million words
member letters
projects
languages
Strict Turnaround Times Met
95% of All Plan Letter deadlines met. 83% of projects delivered ahead of schedule.
The key to success: Leveraging previously translated content saves valuable time and is a part of all translation processes at Avantpage. In some instances, we took over the additional task of printing and mailing these member notices after translation, shaving off substantial project management time on the client side.
Cost Savings for our State Managed Health Plans
Our largest managed health plan client saw 39.5% savings from translation memory in just the first year.
The key to success: The more you translate, the more you save. Avantpage’s translation memory software captures reusable content from each member notice, meaning only patient-specific text is translated from scratch and charged at full price. In the early days of the rollout, we performed alignments of previously translated all plan letters, building a bank of content to reuse from day one.
State-Managed Health Plans Expect High Quality
We received satisfaction ratings of 4.9 out of 5 from health plans translating NOA and NAR All Plan Letter.
The key to success: Qualified linguists, solid processes, dedicated project managers, and trusted technology. All of these are vital to delivering quality translations and excellent customer service.
Success Summary
We know that our clients are in the position of balancing budget with quality. With this increase in translation need, we showed that cost savings don’t necessarily present themselves in the form of a lower per-word rate. Our review demonstrated that by using technology, adapting workflows, and adding services, we were able to shave off hidden overheads and maintain timely and quality language access for our clients’ LEP members.
Contact Us Today
To learn more about how we can integrate into your organization’s systems for fast turnaround, cost savings, and specialized workflows, contact us today.