Aligning Care with Language Needs
Date: 07/23/25
As part of our commitment to health equity and cultural responsiveness, we continuously monitor language assistance requests to ensure all members can access care in their preferred language.
Member Demographics and Our Members
To meet the needs of its ever growing culturally diverse membership, Sunflower Health Plan offers a language assistance program (LAP) to its members. This report summarizes Sunflower Health Plan’s language assistance programs for its Medicaid line of business for calendar year 2024. The data represented are results of the 2024 LAP analysis.
Top 10 Languages for Interpreter Requests - 2024
| Phone | Face-to-Face | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported Race and Ethnicity | f | % | f | % |
| Spanish | 378 | 86.9% | 359 | 64.7% |
| Swahili | 9 | 2.1% | 6 | 1.1% |
| Arabic | 9 | 2.1% | 2 | 0.4% |
| Vietnamese | 9 | 2.1% | 3 | 0.5% |
| Rohingya | 7 | 1.6% | 0 | 0.0% |
| Burmese | 7 | 1.6% | 102 | 18.4% |
| Russian | 4 | 0.9% | 0 | 0 0.0% |
| Bengali | 4 | 0.9% | 0 | 0 0.0% |
| Pashto (Afghanistan) | 2 | 0.5% | 0 | 0 0.0% |
| Somali | 2 | 0.5% | 0 | 0 0.0% |
To proactively meet member needs for language service requests and identify emerging needs based on community demographics, Sunflower collects the language characteristics of the member population annually. The table below shows the languages reported by our membership.
Top 10 Languages Reported by Membership - 2024
| Membership | ||
|---|---|---|
| Reported Language | f | % |
| English | 131,226 | 94.20% |
| Spanish | 7,324 | 5.26% |
| Arabic | 161 | 0.12% |
| Vietnamese | 120 | 0.09% |
| Russian | 102 | 0.07% |
| Chinese | 79 | 0.06% |
| French | 54 | 0.04% |
| Somali | 53 | 0.04% |
| Hindi | 27 | 0.02% |
| Portuguese | 26 | 0.02% |
Sunflower annually analyzes the capacity of its network to meet the language needs of members, provide culturally appropriate care, identify and prioritize opportunities, and implement interventions to address gaps, if applicable. The tables below show the languages, race and ethnicity reported by our providers.
Member-Reported Language to Practitioner Language Composition Comparison by Practitioner Type (2024)
| Member | Primary Care | Specialist | Behavioral | All Practitioners | Ratio | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language | f | % | f | % | f | % | f | % | f | % | (:) |
| English | 131,226 | 93.02% | 143,491 | 39.51% | 77,949 | 41.00% | 18,308 | 40.66% | 236,218 | 40.49% | 0.6 |
| Spanish | 7,324 | 5.19% | 43,022 | 11.84% | 26,729 | 14.06% | 5,782 | 12.84% | 73,378 | 12.58% | 0.1 |
| Miscellaneous (Other) | 958 | 0.68% | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.00% | 0 | 0.00% | 0.0 |
| Unknown | 809 | 0.57% | 153,960 | 42.39% | 71,116 | 37.40% | 16,003 | 35.54% | 232,586 | 39.87% | 0.0 |
| Arabic | 161 | 0.11% | 2,856 | 0.79% | 1,882 | 0.99% | 351 | 0.78% | 4,966 | 0.85% | 0.0 |
| Vietnamese | 120 | 0.07% | 4,212 | 1.16% | 2,886 | 1.52% | 1,456 | 3.23% | 8,382 | 1.44% | 0.0 |
| Russian | 102 | 0.07% | 4,141 | 1.14% | 2,619 | 1.38% | 1,395 | 3.10% | 8,029 | 1.38% | 0.0 |
| Chinese | 79 | 0.06% | 798 | 0.22% | 395 | 0.21% | 150 | 0.33% | 1,327 | 0.23% | 0.1 |
| French | 54 | 0.04% | 2,883 | 0.79% | 1,771 | 0.93% | 466 | 1.03% | 5,046 | 0.86% | 0.0 |
| Somali | 53 | 0.04% | 251 | 0.07% | 155 | 0.08% | 62 | 0.14% | 468 | 0.08% | 0.1 |
Member to Practitioner Race and Ethnicity Comparison (2024)
| Member | Practitioner | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported Race and Ethnicity | f | % | f | % |
| Race | ||||
| American Indian and Alaska Native alone, not Hispanic or Latino | 2,290 | 1.6% | 6 | 0.04% |
| Asian alone, not Hispanic or Latino | 1,675 | 1.2% | 19 | 0.1% |
| Black or African American alone, not Hispanic or Latino | 15,284 | 10.8% | 45 | 0.3% |
| Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander alone, not Hispanic or Latino | 445 | 0.3% | 0 | 0.00% |
| White alone, not Hispanic or Latino | 93,185 | 66.1% | 846 | 6.1% |
| Unknown/Blank | 28,194 | 20.0% | 12,909 | 93.1% |
| Ethnicity | ||||
| Hispanic or Latino | 60,515 | 42.896% | 37 | 0.3% |
| Non-Hispanic or Latino | 10,729 | 7.605% | 916 | 6.6% |
| Unknown/Blank | 69,829 | 49.5% | 12,909 | 93.1% |
Sources: State 834 File; provider demographic records
What This Means for You
Language access is not just a compliance matter — it’s critical for patient safety, satisfaction and health outcomes. We encourage providers to:
- Update their spoken language information reported in our provider directory.
- Use our Interpreter Services when language alignment is not available.
- Participate in Cultural Competency & Language Access Trainings.
Sunflower Offers Interpreter/Translation Services
Sunflower Health Plan is committed to ensuring that staff, providers and subcontractors receive education about, remain aware of and are sensitive to the linguistic needs and cultural differences of its members. To meet this need, Sunflower commits to the following:
- Trained interpreters available on-site or by phone to support providers in discussing medical or treatment information.
- 24/7 language line services in multiple languages for provider-member communication when no in-person translators are available.
- In-person interpreters available with advance notice; telephonic interpreters available for urgent and non-urgent needs.
- TTY access as needed.
- 24/7 medical advice line offers Spanish interpretation and coordination for other languages via the language line.
- Customer service and health education materials available in alternative formats (e.g., audio, translated) upon request.
Accessing an Interpreter for Sunflower Health Plan Members in Your Office
To schedule or request an on-demand telephonic interpreter, please call 1-877-644-4623 (TTY 711) and provide your patient’s member ID number.
Not sure of your patient’s language? We have a Language Identification Tool (PDF) to help! Have the member point to their language. If it’s not listed, you can work with the interpreter service to identify the right language. You may also find out a patient's language by logging on to our provider portal and downloading your patient list or by contacting Customer Service at 877-644-4623.
We recommend using the speakerphone function for communication efficiency between you, your patient and the interpreter.
All participating Sunflower Health Plan providers are required to comply with certain interpreter requirements.
- Providers who use bilingual staff to communicate with patients must ensure that bilingual staff can interpret effectively, accurately and to and from the language of the patient and English, using any necessary specialized vocabulary terminology and phraseology.
- Patients can never be required to bring their own interpreters.
- Minors may not interpret, even if their parent or other relative consents, except in an emergency when there is no qualified interpreter immediately available.
- An accompanying adult may interpret if the patient agrees and if it is appropriate to the situation.
Providers are strongly encouraged to use interpreter services for patients whose primary language isn’t English. But if a member declines to use an interpreter, please document in the medical record the use of family or friends as interpreters.
Thank you for partnering with us to meet the cultural and linguistic needs of our members. Contact your Sunflower provider relations specialist to learn more about these requirements and how you can use them to build stronger and more effective relationships with your patients.