The NCIHC is a multidisciplinary organization whose mission is to promote and 
enhance language access in health care in the United States. 

 JOIN US IN CELEBRATING THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE
2019 LANGUAGE ACCESS CHAMPIONS

The NCIHC Language Access Champion Award Honors a person, program or organization whose work has contributed to improving the lives of all people through the promotion of
language access in health care. 

AllCare Health, Inc. is a physician-led organization that manages a Medicare Advantage Plan and Managed Medicaid in Southern Oregon. AllCare has a formal Health Equity committee that looks at health care disparities across the region. In 2015 AllCare and So-Health-E (a local regional health equity coalition) completed several listening sessions with the Latino community. The response overwhelmingly was that the community needed more Certified Medical Interpreters. AllCare added a Health Equity measure to our Alternative Payment Models as part of the reimbursement with our Provider Network. The measure could also be met for offices that had at least one Certified or Qualified Medical Interpreter on staff. Training and certification was identified as the main barrier to interpreters in the area. AllCare licenses a 64 hour interpreter training form Cross Cultural Solutions called Bridging the Gap. This training is offered twice a year and scholarships are made available. For an interpreter to become certified there is an oral test that must be completed. There was only one location in the state that offered this test. AllCare worked with Certification for Health Care Interpreters to offer two sites in Southern Oregon to offer the test. Please see the attached graph that shows the increase of the availability of the workforce over five (5) years and when interventions began. AllCare has also become the only insurance plan in the state of Oregon that allows providers to bill for Certified or Qualified Interpreters directly through the claims system.

Jorge U. Ungo has dedicated his career to providing high quality language access services in health care. As the director of an international interpreting program, Jorge was responsible for all business operations including the development of specialized training programs and quality assurance processes. Today, Jorge is a Strategic Healthcare Account Executive for LanguageLine Solutions, and is also a Commissioner at the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters (CCHI). In addition to his work with language services providers, Jorge has served as President of the Texas Association of Healthcare Interpreters and Translators (TAHIT) and as a board member of the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care (NCIHC). Additionally, Jorge has served on the boards of the Houston Interpreters and Translators Association (HITA), the Texas Alliance for Patient Services (TAPS), and Encuentro Latino. Jorge was also the founding acting administrator of the American Translators Association Medical Division (ATA-MD). Jorge has committed more hours of his life to his volunteer efforts on behalf of LEP people and language access services and quality than he has to his full-time working career, which seeks to serve the same communities. He is a person with a passion for making lives better for people unable to help themselves. He is someone who has done SO much for our mission already, but still has so much to accomplish, so much to give, and justly should be inspired to continue as this year's Language Access Champion.