6.4 2. Doctors’ Offices

• Library: Disability Law and Practice, Vol. 3 (NY) 2017

2.. Doctors’ Offices

Even more widespread is the failure to provide interpreters in doctors’ offices. Some physicians may be unaware of the legal duty to ensure accessibility. However, a 1993 study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association demonstrated that a majority of physicians know an interpreter is necessary to provide effective treatment to a deaf patient, but only a small minority actually provide interpreters.²⁵

In June 1994, the state attorney general filed a federal suit against the Mid-Hudson Medical Group, a 19-physician group practice, which refused to provide interpreters to deaf patients. The action, brought under the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act as well as the state human rights and civil rights laws, challenged the defendants’ policy that “notepad communication” is sufficient, and sought injunctive relief as well as compensatory and punitive damages.²⁶ The defendants filed a motion to dismiss, asserting, among other arguments, that the People of New York lacked standing to assert the rights of the deaf. In denying the motion, the court observed that “New York has unmistakably declared its interest in the nondiscriminatory treatment of its citizens,” and noted that “defendants’ alleged discrimination against its seven to ten deaf patients threatens all hearing impaired citizens and perhaps disabled citizens throughout [the state].”²⁷ Mid-Hudson’s assertion that “the Attorney General is ‘nothing more than an interloper’ ‘who has no business’ asserting an ADA claim” was flatly rejected.²⁸

The case was resolved on the eve of trial by a consent judgment. Defendants agreed to make individualized decisions about providing auxiliary aids to deaf patients and to view a request for an interpreter as a “significant factor” in making that decision. They also agreed to train staff about the consent judgment and about hearing impairments, to notify all current and future deaf patients about the consent judgment, to document all communications with deaf patients concerning auxiliary aids (as well as the decisions made), to inform the attorney general’s office of each request and decision concerning auxiliary aids for a period of two years and to pay the state of New York $25,000.²⁹

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has also implemented and enforced regulations under titles II and III of the ADA to remedy the refusal of private health care providers to treat individuals with hearing impairments based upon that...