July 2011 Blogs

IHCIA Update: Behavioral Health Provisions

The permanent authorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (IHCIA) included several new behavioral health authorities. Section 127 of IHCIA included a behavioral health hiring plan that IHS completed by the statutory deadline. Section 702 of IHCIA required an inpatient needs assessment be performed within one year of passage of the law, and IHS also completed this assessment by the statutory deadline. At the request of Tribes, the documents are now publicly available here.

• IHCIA Behavioral Health Hiring Plan [PDF - 12KB]
• IHCIA Behavioral Health Inpatient Needs Assessment [PDF - 483KB]

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IHS Tribal Injury Prevention Cooperative Agreement Program Annual Meeting

I met with participants in the IHS Tribal Injury Prevention Cooperative Agreement Program at their Annual Meeting in Rockville, MD. Here's a picture from the meeting:

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IHS Director's Award

I hosted the 2010 IHS National Director's Awards Ceremony at the National Museum of the American Indian in June and honored several I/T/U employees and IHS partners. In addition to the traditional IHS Director?s Award to honor outstanding contributions by employees, I created two new award categories ? the IHS Director?s Award for Customer Service and the IHS Director?s Special Recognition Award for our outstanding stakeholders and partners. I also honored employees with 40 or more years of service to IHS, and presented top Commissioned Corps honor awards. Overall it was great to honor individuals and groups for exceptional contributions to our mission and our agency priorities. We plan to publish a formal awards booklet with all names and citations for the awards that we will post it on our website. Here are some pictures from the awards ceremony:

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IHS - NIH Research Roundtable

I facilitated a roundtable on American Indian and Alaska Native research with participants at the Annual Native Research Network Conference in Niagara Falls, NY. The purpose of the roundtable was to gather recommendations on future collaborations between IHS and NIH to address/improve research issues related to American Indian and Alaska Native health and Tribal communities. Here is a picture from the roundtable:

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Patty Iron Cloud National Native American Youth Initiative

I met with the high school students visiting Washington, D.C., for a week in the Patty Iron Cloud National Native American Youth Initiative. This program is coordinated by the Association of American Indian Physician. The students learn about health policy and health professions during their week-long visit. Here are pictures of the group:

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IHCIA Implementation Update: Purchased/Referred Care (PRC)

Section 135 of the recent reauthorization of IHCIA amends Section 222 to indicate that patients are not liable for services that are authorized for payment by a Purchased/Referred Care (PRC) program carried out by IHS, Tribal or urban Indian health programs. It is important to note that not all visits or referrals for IHS eligible patients to non-IHS providers are authorized for payment - if a patient goes on their own, is not eligible, or funding is not available and the referral does not meet medical priority, the services are not authorized for payment. However, if IHS has authorized the services for payment by PRC, then the non-IHS provider cannot try to collect the payment from the patient. Here is a copy of a letter [PDF - 14KB] sent to all PRC programs to notify non-IHS providers of this provision.

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Barbara Jordan Health Policy Scholars visit IHS Headquarters

I met with the newly selected Barbara Jordan Health Policy Scholars at IHS Headquarters. They were getting oriented for their summer spent working in Congress and learning about health policy. Here's a picture of the group:

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Indian Health Board of Nevada Quarterly Meeting

I met with the Indian Health Board of Nevada at their Quarterly Meeting in Reno, NV, and we discussed several issues, including submission of the plan for a Nevada Area Office to Congress, budget issues, and contract health service issues. Here's a picture from the meeting:

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Navajo Nation Listening Session

I met with the Navajo Nation in June to conduct a listening session. We discussed several issues and the Tribe provided input. I notified President Ben Shelly during the listening session that I was awarding him an IHS Director's Special Recognition Award for Public Health Leadership for signing the Navajo Nation Commercial Free Tobacco Executive Order later in the month. Here are some pictures of the listening session and from the recent award ceremony:

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IHCIA Implementation Update

This week we are mailing a letter to all Tribes to provide an update on our implementation of the IHCIA reauthorization. We used the summary table provided in the May, 2010, Tribal leader letter and added a "Progress" column so that it would be easier to track progress on implementation of the many provisions in the law. We will be distributing and reviewing this update at the Tribal Consultation Summit this week. Here is a link to the copy of the letter [PDF - 22KB] with the summary table [PDF - 141KB].

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Gallup Indian Medical Center Site Visit

I visited Gallup Indian Medical Center in June and got a chance to tour the facility, meet staff, and provide an update on progress on our agency priorities. Here are pictures from the visit:

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