Serving Multilingual Patients at Your Imaging Clinic

A large share of Victorians speak a language other than English at home, and in many Melbourne suburbs that share is a majority. Mandarin, Vietnamese, Arabic, Greek, Cantonese, Italian, Punjabi and Hindi are all spoken by large communities - and every one of those communities needs imaging at the same rates as everyone else.

For an imaging clinic, this isn't an edge case to accommodate; it's a substantial segment of the local market. A patient who isn't confident in English faces real barriers at every step of the imaging journey: understanding the referral, phoning to book, following fasting instructions, consenting to contrast, and understanding what happens next.

Clinics that lower those barriers don't just provide better care. They become the clinic of choice for entire communities, because word of mouth travels fast within language groups - "they have a Vietnamese-speaking radiographer" is a powerful recommendation that no advertising can replicate.

Most clinics have more language capability than they realise - a receptionist who speaks Greek with her family, a radiographer fluent in Mandarin, a radiologist who trained in Cairo. But that capability only wins bookings if patients can find out about it before they choose a clinic.

Start with a simple audit: • Ask every staff member which languages they speak and at what level - comfortable conversation is the useful threshold, not perfect fluency • Record which roles and which days those staff work, so reception can set accurate expectations • List those languages on your Radly profile, your website, and your Google Business Profile

Be honest about coverage. If your Mandarin-speaking radiographer works Tuesdays and Thursdays, reception should know to offer those days to patients who booked because of the language listing. An accurate promise kept builds loyalty; an accidental overpromise does the opposite.

Staff language skills won't cover every patient, and family members - especially children - should not be relied on to interpret clinical information. That's what professional interpreter services are for.

TIS National (the Translating and Interpreting Service) provides phone interpreting across a wide range of languages, and medical practitioners can access free interpreting for Medicare-rebateable services delivered in private practice. For an imaging clinic, the practical uses are:

• Booking calls where the patient's English isn't sufficient to confirm details and preparation • Consent conversations, particularly for contrast injections and procedures • Explaining safety screening questions - MRI metal checklists genuinely matter, and a misunderstood question is a safety risk, not just an inconvenience

Make it easy for your team: put the TIS National contact details and your clinic's account process on a card at reception, and train staff on how to bring an interpreter into a call. The first time is awkward; by the third it's routine.

You don't need to translate your whole website. Translate the handful of documents where a misunderstanding causes a failed scan or a safety issue:

• Fasting and preparation instructions for your common scans - CT with contrast, abdominal ultrasound, pelvic ultrasound (full bladder) • The MRI safety questionnaire, or at least a plain-language explanation of why the metal questions matter • What-to-expect summaries for contrast injections • Basic arrival information - address, parking, what to bring

Prioritise the languages most common in your catchment; your suburb's demographics will tell you which. Use a professional translation service for anything clinical or safety-related - machine translation is acceptable for a parking note, not for contrast consent.

A failed scan caused by wrong preparation costs you the slot and the patient a repeat visit. A translated instruction sheet that prevents even a few of those each month pays for itself quickly.

Radly's patient interface itself is available in English, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Arabic and Greek - which means patients who prefer those languages can search for imaging, compare clinics and request appointments entirely in their own language.

Within that search, patients can filter clinics by the languages spoken by staff. A clinic that has listed "Vietnamese" appears in results for a patient specifically looking for that; a clinic with the same Vietnamese-speaking staff member but a blank languages field does not. The capability without the listing earns you nothing.

Your profile's languages section is therefore one of the highest-leverage fields you can complete: • It's filterable, so it puts you into searches you'd otherwise be excluded from • It's visible in side-by-side comparison, where it differentiates you from otherwise similar clinics • It sets accurate expectations before the patient arrives, so your team isn't surprised

Keep it current as staff come and go, the same way you maintain your hours and pricing.

Beyond listings and translations, a few low-cost habits make multilingual patients measurably more comfortable:

• Note language preference in the patient record at booking, so the day team is prepared rather than improvising at reception • Schedule language-matched appointments where possible - booking the Mandarin-speaking patient on a day the Mandarin-speaking radiographer works costs nothing • Speak plainly with all patients - short sentences, no jargon, checking understanding - which helps everyone, not only those with limited English • Use gestures and demonstration during positioning; radiographers do this instinctively, and encouraging it explicitly helps consistency • Display a simple "languages spoken here" notice at reception - it signals welcome before a word is exchanged

None of this requires budget approval. It requires deciding that multilingual patients are a core part of your patient base - because in most of Victoria, they are.