Another big hurdle between cultures is the terminology. Differences in the understanding and definition of health terms as well as in the conceptualization of illness widens the distance between provider and patient. As the "cultural distance" between individuals increases, the likelihood of a communication problem increases (Pachter, 691).

A culture may have its own orderly categories of afflictions that divide illnesses into those that are amenable to treatment by folk medicine, lay healers, or relatives, and those that are amenable to scientific treatment. The Navajos, for example, will often use both native healers and physicians because of the Navajo belief that modern medicine removes the symptoms of an illness and Navajo medicine removes the cause (Katz, 478). It is important for health care providers to understand this concept. Patients are not trying to go against the wishes of the health care provider but in any given culture that patient may be accountable to a whole set of other rules and treatments for any given disease. When providers try to incorporate both systems, the provider will find much better compliance on the patient's part. In a way, it is like being told as a child to study one way at home and being instructed in an entirely different way of studying at school. This creates confusion and turmoil within the child because the child wishes to please both parents and teachers. Many patients feel the same way, torn between what the provider tells them to do and what the "culture" tells them to do.