HIP USA

Background

Health Insurance Plan (HIP USA) is a group and network-based healthcare plan provider headquartered in New York. Serving nearly 1.5 million people in the tri-state area, HIP offers a wide range of health care products including HMO, PPO, POS, and EPO plans. Members have access to HIP-contracted private physicians as well as doctors practicing in large multi-specialty outpatient medical centers and outpatient medical centers associated with some of New York's leading hospitals, including Beth Israel Medical Center, St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, St. Barnabas Hospital, Lenox Hill Hospital, and Montefiore Medical Center.

Challenge

Founded in the 1940s, HIP has grown steadily, and is now the largest membership-based HMO in New York City. HIP's total network comprises nearly 39,000 physicians and providers throughout 57,000 locations in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, and contracts with more than 160 hospitals, including major acute care institutions. With such growth resulting in an increasingly multilingual customer base, HIP required better communication with its Chinese, Korean, and Spanish speaking members.

• Due to the specific terminology associated with the healthcare industry, HIP needed a localization partner who could guarantee linguistic accuracy in multiple language sets.
• To address HIP's ever-expanding client base, tight time restrictions were imposed on the localization of all three languages.
• The legal pressures of the healthcare industry demanded strict compliance with regulatory requirements across all languages.

Solution

Drawing on vast experience with content translation, Translations.com worked with HIP USA to create a three-language project that addressed both their linguistic and regulatory concerns.

• Translations.com teamed with HIP to assemble an exhaustive glossary consisting of over 750 key HIP-specific phrases in each of the three languages. This glossary was designed to ensure consistency over time and across projects.
• To accompany the glossary, linguists created a comprehensive style guide to dictate client preferences regarding grammar, punctuation, and abbreviation in each language.
• A three-stage language review was instated to certify the integrity of content and adaptation.
• Dedicated managers devised an industry-specific business model to meet HIP's budgetary and timeline requirements.

Translations.com's threefold solution launched HIP's multilingual web presence within time and budget parameters. Through this effort, HIP became the first healthcare company in the nation to offer its website in Spanish, Chinese, and Korean. Today, Translations.com remains an important partner with HIP, helping to maintain its position as the face of healthcare diversity through the innovative pairing of technological expertise and linguistic acumen.

Back to case studies list.