Promoting equity in pediatric health care through language services reimbursement

Health care is often accessed when patients are at their most vulnerable, and engaging with health care systems can be challenging and, in some cases, traumatic and frightening. These challenges are compounded for patients with limited English proficiency (LEP). Data from the 2022 American Community Survey reveal that an estimated 21.7% of the US population speaks a language other than English, and 8.2% identifies as LEP. Note that we use LEP in this commentary aligned with federal guidelines, although we recognize that this term is deficit-focused and there are other terms to describe this community (eg, English language learner, linguistically diverse).