Section 1557 - Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities Requirements

What is 1557 and Why Comply?

Section 1557 builds on prior federal civil rights laws to prohibit sex discrimination in health care. Prohibits the use of marketing practices or benefit designs that discriminate on the basis of disability and/or other prohibited bases covered entities to make all programs and activities provided through electronic and information technology accessible; to ensure the physical accessibility of newly constructed or altered facilities; and to provide appropriate auxiliary aids and services for individuals with disabilities. ALL CE’s must take reasonable steps to provide meaningful access to each individual with limited English proficiency eligible to be served or likely to be encountered in their health programs and activities.

Section 1557 Applied To:

• Any health program or activity, any part of which receives funding from HHS (such as hospitals that accept Medicare or doctors who accept Medicaid).
• Any health program that HHS itself administers.
• Health Insurance Marketplaces and issuers that participate in those Marketplaces.

Requirements

• Requires CE’s with 15 or more employees to have a grievance procedure and a compliance coordinator.
• Requires that CE’s post notices of nondiscrimination and taglines that alert individuals with limited English proficiency to the availability of language assistance services.
• Requires each CE’s to post taglines in at least the top 15 non-English languages spoken in the State in which the entity is located or does business.

Tune into our on-demand webinar, Compliance Simplified, for the full story on how to prepare your organization for new claims scrutiny headed your way and for more on 1557: