With the future of the Affordable Care Act at stake in this year’s presidential election, health care navigators are bracing for the outcome and what it may mean for the communities they help. Navigators said that as funding moves up and down, so does the number of people in their communities who are able to access life-saving treatment. Daniel Derksen, MD, is quoted.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), approved section 1115 demonstration amendments that allow, for the first time ever, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) coverage of traditional health care practices provided by Indian Health Service (IHS) facilities, Tribal facilities, and urban Indian organizations (UIO).

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has launched a program that will support Native American communities to lead public health research to address overdose, substance use, and pain, including related factors such as mental health and wellness.

The Arizona Center for Rural Health was awarded two grants by the Health Resources and Services Administration to support health services in rural communities.
The first grant will provide $3.17 million over five years for the Arizona Rural Hospital Flexibility Program, which supports Critical Access Hospitals in rural areas with training, data collection, analysis and dissemination to improve the quality of patient care and operational performance. The program has been continuously funded for the past 26 years.

An Indian Health Service grant will help Indigenous nursing students pursue higher education while also building new tribal-academic-practice collaborations to improve the care of Native populations.

Federal investigators and tribal epidemiologists have documented a litany of obstacles keeping state and federal public health information from tribes, including confusion about data-sharing policies, inconsistent processes for requesting information, data that’s of poor quality or outdated, and strict privacy rules for sensitive data on health issues like HIV and substance misuse.

Back to School means gearing up for the year ahead, and for many that means covering all the bases including healthcare. Finding healthcare can be a daunting task but Arizona Center for Rural Health Certified Assisters are here to help.

Medicaid can partner with tribal communities to better serve their members, who face persistent and significant health disparities. But before deciding how to address tribal needs, it is critical for Medicaid agencies to forge strong partnerships by actively listening to what the tribes need and want.