Patient Document TranslationDischarge Instructions, Consent Forms and Vital Documents — Pashto, Dari and 22 More Afghan Languages

Patient document translation is the written translation of documents that explain care or affect a patient's rights, such as discharge instructions, consent forms, medication instructions and billing notices. Ariana Nexus translates them into Pashto, Dari and 22 more Afghan languages, with human review and audio versions for patients who do not read.

Under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, covered health programs must take reasonable steps to give patients with limited English proficiency meaningful access, and must use a qualified translator when translation is required (45 CFR 92.201). Whether a given document must be translated depends on how many Pashto or Dari speakers you serve and how much depends on the document. This is general information, not legal advice.

Not on its own. Federal rules require a qualified human translator to review machine translation of critical or technical documents (45 CFR 92.201(c)(3)). In a 2021 study, Google Translate kept the meaning of only 67.5% of emergency discharge instructions in Farsi, the language closest to Dari that was tested. We review machine drafts and correct them to the Afghan standard.

Dari and Iranian Persian are closely related but differ in everyday and medical vocabulary. An Afghan patient reads شفاخانه for hospital and دواخانه for pharmacy, not the Iranian بیمارستان and داروخانه. We translate into Afghan Dari with translators who grew up with it.

Vital documents are the ones a patient needs to receive care, make a decision or protect their rights: consent forms, discharge and medication instructions, notices of rights and language assistance, financial assistance documents, complaint forms, and notices about eligibility or denial of services. We help you inventory and tier them by risk.

Most consent forms take one to three business days, including independent review. Back-translation for research consent adds time, and recorded audio adds a day. Urgent Pashto and Dari discharge instructions can be returned the same day.

We record the translated document in the patient's own variety, in a matched voice, and print a QR code on the page that opens the recording. For languages without a common written form, the recording is the translation, reviewed by a second speaker of the same variety.

We write standard Afghan Pashto that readers across regions recognize, then match wording and the recorded version to the patient's variety, such as Kandahari, central, eastern or Khost Pashto.

Yes. Research consent documents receive translation, independent review and back-translation into English, reconciled line by line, with a signed certificate of accuracy for your IRB file.

Yes. We sign a Business Associate Agreement before any patient information is shared, transfer files through secure channels, limit access to the assigned team, and never send documents to, or process them in, Afghanistan.

Yes. We translate Pashto and Dari medical records, prescriptions and vaccination cards from Afghanistan and Pakistan into English for clinicians, schools and immigration medical exams, with a certificate of accuracy.

Yes. Behavioral health intake forms, safety plans and care plans are translated with a trauma-informed approach that respects experiences of war, displacement and moral injury, and are reviewed by our behavioral health lead.

Cost depends on the language, length, review depth, audio needs and turnaround. We quote per word or per document before work starts, and template programs lower the cost of documents you reuse.