As healthcare continues its digital transformation, ensuring clear, accessible communication with patients remains crucial. This is especially important for a diverse population with varying language needs and accessibility requirements. The recent Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Final Rule reflects this commitment to inclusivity by establishing stricter guidelines for Medicare Advantage and Part D payers regarding patient communication accessibility and language requirements.
Communications that are static for a period, such as a year, and do not have personal health information (PHI) in them are now required to be provided in all of the formats and online versions needed to be compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Section 508 specifies compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which is a set of guidelines created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to help make web content more accessible to people with disabilities. While requiring additional work and time to create the different formats, they should not be problematic for the plans. Where the challenges arise are in the documents that are transactional in nature, such as Explanations of Benefits (EOB), which contain PHI and need to be sent to members in a timely manner.
