What happens when a patient calls through TIS National?
TIS National's immediate phone interpreting service is available 24 hours a day, every day of the year, to any individual or organisation in Australia. A patient who needs an interpreter calls TIS National, states their language and is connected to an interpreter. They give their name and the name and phone number of the organisation they want, and the operator calls your clinic and connects the patient and interpreter to you. TIS National says the organisation being contacted generally accepts the charges for the service. Staff should expect an introduction from the interpreter or operator and should not mistake it for a sales or automated call.
Can your practice use the Free Interpreting Service?
The Free Interpreting Service is delivered by TIS National for the Department of Home Affairs. Private medical practitioners, defined as general practitioners, nurse practitioners, endorsed midwives and approved medical specialists, can use it for Medicare-rebateable services delivered in private practice to people eligible for Medicare. Pharmacies and eligible allied health professionals are also among the eligible groups. Each practitioner needs a client code, and practice support staff working with a registered practitioner can use the same code, including for arranging appointment times. The service cannot be used for non-eligible allied health services, patients not eligible for Medicare, or state-funded public health services.
- Immediate phone interpreting
- Automated Telephone Interpreting Service (ATIS)
- Pre-booked phone interpreting
- On-site interpreting (not available to pharmacies)
- Video remote interpreting
What is a National Relay Service call like?
The National Relay Service helps people who are deaf, hard of hearing or find it hard to speak to make phone calls. Relay officers change voice to text or text to voice, or Auslan to English and back, and stay on the line without changing what is said. The service runs 24 hours a day except Video Relay, which runs limited weekday and Saturday hours. In an NRS Chat call, the caller types, the relay officer reads it aloud, you reply, and the officer types your words back. Expect pauses while each turn is relayed, and address the patient directly instead of the relay officer.
- NRS Chat: the caller types and reads
- NRS Captions: the caller speaks and reads captions
- SMS Relay: the caller types by SMS
- Voice Relay: the caller speaks with assistance
- Video Relay: the caller uses Auslan
How should reception speak during these calls?
Speak to the patient in the first person, as you would on any call, and let the interpreter or relay officer do the conversion. Use short sentences and ask one question at a time. Allow more time than usual, and do not fill pauses by repeating yourself. Read booking details back in full, including date, time, practitioner and address, and ask the patient to confirm them. Avoid abbreviations and internal terms. Do not ask an interpreter for opinions or hold side conversations about the patient. Record the interpreter or relay use on the patient file so the next staff member is prepared.
How do you book an interpreter for the appointment?
Record the patient's preferred language, any dialect and any preference for the interpreter's gender, then agree with the practitioner which interpreting mode suits the appointment. TIS National's information sheet for medical practitioners notes that pre-booked phone interpreting suits planned appointments or languages with limited availability, and that on-site interpreting may matter for complicated consultations, such as when a doctor gives complex instructions or relies on non-verbal cues. It lists seeking informed consent, patients in crisis, assessing competence and complex information as situations where a credentialed interpreter is particularly important. Book a longer appointment and include the interpreter arrangement in the reminder.
What should an automated phone system do with these calls?
Interpreter and relay calls include long pauses and a second voice, and an automated system has to be set up to expect both. Check that it does not end a call because of silence while a turn is being relayed, that it recognises an interpreter or relay introduction, and that it hands the call to staff or takes a clear message when it cannot continue. Ask staff to role-play both call types with your provider before launch and review the recordings together. Record the result in your go-live checklist, and repeat the test after any change to call flows or scripts.