• Allow for patients’ legal and preferred name
• Allow patients to list gender pronouns
• Allow patients to select their proper gender identity, including a fill-in-the-blank option

As part of the certification requirement, all staff members are required to take cultural competence training for LGBTQ+ care. Offices are encouraged to establish unique cultural competency training that works best for their staff members. Below are training options that BCBSRI has found helpful. Participants will want to keep a record of their participation.

Online

• Training offered by the National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center.
  • The “Achieving Health Equity for LGBTQIA People" is the approved training.
  • We encourage staff members to use the additional learning resources they provide.
• Remote training provided by Human Rights Campaign or other HRC-approved trainings

Conferences

• RI Trans* Health Conference
• Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference
• GLMA Annual Conference

• Practices will make at least one gender-neutral bathroom available for visitor and staff use.
• Practices will clearly post their patient non-discrimination policy.

• Patients are called from the waiting room in a gender-nonspecific way.
• Staff members follow procedures for using the patient’s preferred name and pronouns that may be different from legal name and sex.
• Staff follows procedures for handling a patient’s sexual orientation or gender, when referring the patient to another provider, as appropriate.
• Clinical practices are reviewed annually to ensure providers are not assuming a patient’s gender, marital/partnered status, and/or sexual activity.

The application assesses the requirements mentioned above. You will be able to certify as many unique locations as you would like.

Application deadlines are on 15 de fevereiro and 15 de agosto each year unless these dates fall on a weekend or holiday. Applications will then be due on the following business day.

We encourage you to submit applications at least a few weeks in advance of the deadline if possible. This allows BCBSRI to review your and make recommendations prior to the application deadline, if your application is need of updating to achieve certification.

Our team is available to walk you through the application process and answer any questions you have about the certification. Please email bcbsrisafezone@bcbsri.org if you’d like assistance with your application.

Fill out the application

Before we review your application, we ask that you verify each response on the application by using the file upload feature in the application. This checklist suggests which materials you may want to prepare to verify your application responses.

Please refer to the checklist for details.

After the materials to verify each response have been submitted, we will review your application. To achieve Safe Zone certification, each answer must affirm the best practices in working with LGBTQ+ people. Our grading criteria ensures that members consistently experience the same high standards of care at each Safe Zone location.

We will send window clings and a customized plaque to mark your office a certified Safe Zone. We will post your practice on our member Safe Zone page so those seeking care may easily contact you. You may also share your new credential within your own website or other publications.