Summary
Published Date: May 01, 2003
California’s health maintenance organizations (HMOs) face serious challenges in meeting the needs of their members who have diverse language proficiency and educational attainment. This policy brief summarizes findings from a report that is the most comprehensive profile of the state’s entire HMO membership available to date, including commercial, Medicare, MediCal, and Healthy Families members. Also included are an assessment of the readability of HMO member materials and the availability of linguistic services for limited Englishproficiency members, who represent almost 5% of HMO members statewide (see Exhibit 1).