MYLOGO

A State certification program is currently not in place in this State, however, In order to become a Qualified Medical Interpreter (QMI) within the State of Idaho you must take the minimum 16-hour Medical Interpreter Workshop and pass a language evaluation at the end of the course. Both the certificate of completion and the language evaluation, in conjunction, is what makes you a QMI.

In my experience, these entities are always interested in hiring highly qualified and linguistically talented individuals that have taken, at minimum, the 16-hour medical interpreter course and scored highly on the language evaluation.

Interpreters usually work as contract interpreters and get paid per hour worked. $15-$25/hour depending upon experience, education and training.

The 16-hour Medical Interpreter course (which includes a language evaluation) is the absolute minimum requirement to be able to work as a Medical Interpreter within the State of Idaho.

I am certified to teach the 40-hour Nationally Accredited Bridging the Gap Course from the Cross Cultural Health Care Program and it is accepted throughout the entire nation. After having successfully completed this course your name goes on a registry. This course is also the pre-requisite to commence the National Certification process. Most employers greatly value those who have made the commitment to complete the 40-hour class and it seems to carry more weight when applying to become a medical interpreter. This class is meant for those who are serious about moving forward in the profession of medical interpretation.

The 16-hour class costs $199 and includes the class, the materials and a language evaluation you can later present to prospective employers. The 40-hour class costs $549. In other states, this class costs about twice as much or more but we have support from Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center which allows us to keep costs down.

You can download the registration form, fill it out and email it to us with your payment information included or you can mail it to us and include a check. If you prefer to have us take your registration and payment information over the phone, we are happy to accommodate that request as well.

This is an answer that will depend upon many factors that are unique to each individual and you are welcome to call us for a more tailored response but if you just want to get your feet wet to see if this profession is right for you, your schedule, your availability, etc. then the 16-hour class will be most suited to you. If you want your Certificate to be accepted in other states, you want to eventually become Nationally Certified or want to give yourself an edge when applying to become a medical interpreter then you may want to consider registering for the 40-hour Nationally Accredited course.

Once you register and pay for a class, we send out study materials to help individuals prepare for the medical terminology that you’ll encounter during the course and it also helps you be more successful when completing your language evaluation at the end of the class.

Do I have to take the whole class over again? For any participant who fails their language evaluation they will not need to retake the entire class, they only need to pay a nominal fee and retake their language evaluation.

There are certain languages that are rare and interpreters who can speak those languages are in great need within our local hospitals and communities. At times, there are organizations that will provide a partial scholarship to that individual with the intention of having them begin interpreting for their organization in order to meet the in-person interpretation needs within their hospital or agency.

Spanish, Arabic and Russian are probably most in need. However, there are many well-trained language interpreters needed in French, Farsi, Urdu, Persian, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Swahili, Lingala, Tigrigna, Amharic, Mai-Mai, Karen, Burmese, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Bosnian, Japanese, Basque, Portuguese, among others.

No, American Sign Language (ASL) Interpreters have a different certification process than Spoken Language Interpreters.