Hospitals in Washington are legally required to find out if low-income patients are eligible for charity care. They’re also required to translate information for people with limited English proficiency.

But if you try to ask about financial assistance for health care in Spanish, hospitals across the state might hang up on you or not bother to give you any information. This is according to a survey conducted by Columbia Legal Services, and reported by The News Tribune, which tested 20 hospitals across the state on how well they provide accessible charity care to those most in need.

The survey involved making test calls in English and Spanish to different hospitals asking about health care for a relative. “Testers were abruptly disconnected as soon as they began speaking Spanish, absent any explanation,” Columbia Legal Services wrote in a letter to Providence St. Peter in Olympia. “This conduct violates federal and state law, and prevents persons in greatest need from obtaining critical information regarding health care.”

The survey found that 80 percent of the hospitals hung up on a caller speaking Spanish at least once. For 90 percent of the English-language callers, hospitals said financial help was available for their relative, while only 28 percent of Spanish-speaking callers were told the same. All the hospitals told English-speaking testers at least once that charity care was available, while only 40 percent of Spanish callers were told this at least once.

Beyond language access, the survey also found that hospitals were neglecting to screen people for charity care and inform them about their charity care rights. In outreach to farm worker communities that were mostly immigrants and people of color with limited English proficiency, Columbia Legal Services found that people often don’t know that charity care is an option — and if they do, they probably heard about it from someone they knew and not from a hospital.

Columbia Legal Services sent a letter to 12 of the 20 hospitals surveyed criticizing them for neglecting their duties to provide accessible charity care.

The survey was part of a larger campaign from Columbia Legal Services to increase access to charity care, which also includes lawsuits against Northwest Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle. That lawsuit alleges that this hospital would send people’s debt to collection agencies in violation of state law, rather than seeing if patients were eligible for aid.

Read the full report and its results here.