Linguistic Competence Provider Incentive

In an effort to support the Alliance’s work to achieve health equity and reduce health disparities related to language and cultural barriers for our members, our Workforce Recruitment Programs offer the Linguistic Competence Provider Incentive for grantee organizations who hire bilingual providers. Grantees of the Community Health Worker, Doula, Medical Assistant and Provider Recruitment programs may be eligible for the incentive.

The Alliance serves communities comprised of many cultures, languages and ethnic groups. It is vital that our providers understand our members' cultural, ethnic and religious beliefs, as well as their preferred language, so that they can provide culturally and linguistically competent care to our members.

Linguistic competence is defined as providing readily available, culturally appropriate oral language services to limited English proficiency (LEP) members through such means as bilingual/bicultural staff.

This provider recruitment incentive does not replace or surpass Alliance policy and state regulations related to Affordable Care Act Section 1557, in which providers are required to have qualified interpreters to meet the linguistic needs of their members.

Eligibility

A grantee organization may be eligible to receive one-time incentive funding in addition to a Community Health Worker, Doula, Medical Assistant or Provider Recruitment grant award if the hired individual meets criteria listed below.

This incentive funding is intended to supplement grants for workforce recruitment-related costs to the grantee organization. Incentive amount for each qualifying language is also listed.

• Hires who are native or bilingual proficient (oral) in one of the Alliance threshold and concentration languages, Spanish or Hmong: $10,000.
• Hires who are native or bilingual proficient (oral) in one of the Alliance indigenous languages (Triqui, Mixteco, Zapoteco including the different regions and variants, or other indigenous languages from Mexico and Central America spoken in the Alliance service areas): $10,000.
• Hires who are native or bilingual proficient (oral) in a foreign language(s) other than those listed above will be considered for the incentive if language is used during their employment at the awarded health care organization: $10,000.
• Hires who are proficient in American Sign Language: $10,000.

Hires who are native or bilingual proficient (oral) in more than one of the above languages are eligible for the total incentive amount. Example: Provider fluent in Spanish and Triqui will receive $20,000.

To earn the Linguistic Competence Provider Incentive, one of the following is required:

• Documentation verifying that the hired individual has taken and passed an oral language fluency exam for the language.
• Attestation signed electronically verifying that the hired individual self-identifies as native or bilingual with oral proficiency and can provide services to Medi-Cal members without the use of interpretation services. The attestation must be signed by both the provider and the individual hired through the recruitment program.

Documentation is required to be submitted with recruitment-related expenses in the first payment request. The incentive amount will be paid to the grantee in full along with the first half of the Workforce Recruitment grant award.