Employee vs. Contract Interpreters: A Guide for Healthcare Leaders
In healthcare, every decision impacts patient outcomes. The choice of a language services partner is no exception. While both contractor and employee interpreter models have their place, there are distinct advantages and limitations. This is a strategic decision rooted in our commitment to superior patient care.
This approach allows us to build an unparalleled ecosystem of support, training, and professional development. dedicated to the highest standards of the profession, ensuring patients and providers experience clear, compassionate, and accurate communication in every encounter.
Defining Quality in Medical Interpretation
Quality language services create seamless communication. Session length doesn't directly determine the interpretation success or value. Instead, how efficiently the time is used is what truly matters.
Key quality indicators are interpreter availability and low wait times. A good language partner connects you to an interpreter almost instantly. Our employee model ensures strategic availability and minimal connection times. By managing a dedicated team, we proactively schedule interpreters for peak hours, so your clinical staff never waits.
Aligning Incentives with Client Goals
The incentive structure for contractors can sometimes conflict with the goals of a healthcare organization. Independent contractors are typically paid per minute, which can create misaligned motivations.
However, incorporating the contractor model provides undeniable value. It is an excellent solution for sourcing interpreters for rare languages and filling gaps during late-night or early-morning hours. This flexibility offers comprehensive 24/7 coverage.
Building an Ecosystem of Excellence with the Employee Model
Interpreting thrives on collaboration and continuous learning. An employee model allows us to create an ecosystem of support for our interpreters to excel. This environment is why we attract and retain top-tier, career-oriented interpreters.
Our interpreters are organized into teams for peer support, mentorship, and ongoing training. The collaborative structure promotes advanced ethical decision-making and gives us a higher percentage of veteran interpreters, bringing years of experience and refined skills to each session.
Driving Quality Through Specialized Training
Due to our strict quality benchmarks and expectations, we only accept 10% of all interpreter applicants. The employee model provides the foundation for a carefully curated, long-term training program that produces highly skilled, healthcare-specialized interpreters. This investment provides consistency and quality that is difficult to achieve with a fragmented workforce.
This ethical framework weaved into our support model ultimately protects the patient’s right to impartial, accurate, and complete communication, preventing common errors like omitting important details or softening a provider’s message.
Our model is intentionally designed around healthcare specialization. By focusing exclusively on medical interpretation, our interpreters develop expertise in complex clinical terminology and the nuances of patient-provider communication. This makes our interpreters more discerning and empathetic, ultimately becoming stronger advocates for the communities they serve. This specialization is why our interpreters have earned an average satisfaction rating of 4.9 out of 5 across hundreds of thousands of physician and nurse reviews.
Whether employee or contractor, all AMN Healthcare interpreters are medically qualified with a minimum of 40 and up to 100 hours of training. Read this article to understand what our medical interpreter training looks like.
The Optimal Mix for Unmatched Performance
Our strategy is clear: we leverage the strengths of both models to deliver the best possible service. Today, 95% of our interpretation minutes are supported by employee interpreters. This is the ideal mix, providing the quality, consistency, and reliability of an employee-based team while maintaining the flexibility to cover all language needs at any time.
This is an investment we choose to make, and as part of a large, publicly traded company, an investment we are uniquely capable of making. It is embedded in our history as and central to our mission of providing compassionate, excellent care.
