Are You Using “Culturally Appropriate” Language?

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) requires group health plans to distribute four-page plan summaries to enrollees. These Summaries of Benefits and Coverage (SBCs) are subject to a “culturally and linguistically appropriate” standard, meaning that when the SBC is distributed to an enrollee at an address in a county where, according to the federal government, at least 10% of the citizens are fluent only in the same non-English language, the summary must include a prominent offer of language assistance in that non-English language.