(ca) My Medical Workplace Doesn't Provide Translators

I work at a specialty practice which is not affiliated with a hospital but primarily source of revenue is outpatient procedures. It does accept Medicare and sometimes dual enrollment patients. I am not sure whether it accepts MediCal.

I've been working here for about 3 weeks and I was shocked we don't have any interpreter services available. They just tell patients to bring someone to interpret and say that makes it the patients'responsibility.

The problem is that these family members often function more as the spokesperson for the patient than a real interpreter. There isn't that much interpreting going on. We get the patient's relative's opinion on their symptoms but not the patient's experience directly. I also don't understand how you can get informed consent on surgeries like this. Plus, patients don't always bring the interpreter and I've heard stories about the patient not being able to follow instructions during procedures due to not understanding.

Is this legal? When I worked at an FQHC before this I was taught that providing interpreters was legally required and we would report specialists who didn't when we referred our patients to them. It just seems so simple to me that you should have a contact with a phone interpreting company, especially since I think that's billable to insurance. Is it billable to insurance for an otherwise not billable visit?