Category: Native American Health Care Providers and Tribal Health Programs

New federal policies for contracting are creating additional barriers to providing health care in IHS-operated facilities. IHS operates roughly 20 hospitals and dozens of outpatient facilities nationally, often in areas that are remote. The IHS already faced serious challenges - Congress has generally funded the IHS at only one-half of its need,...

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has indicated that it has approved Medicaid State Plan amendments for Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming that confirm Medicaid coverage for clinic services provided by tribally-operated health care programs beyond the physical clinic site, including in homes, schools, and other appropriate...

The California Medi-Cal program offers Tribes and Tribal programs a way to receive payments for many administrative activities they perform in providing healthcare to Medi-Cal enrollees. Many Tribes and Tribal organizations are already providing these activities, but are not being reimbursed for them. Examples of activities that may qualify for reimbursement include:

Tribal health programs and Urban Indian Organizations in California that want to provide traditional health care practices to Medi-Cal members will likely want to review the Department of Health Care Services’ most recent guidance on the topic, DHCS Behavioral Health Information Notice 25-007 and attachments. The guidance is lengthy and addresses, among...

Last week, Milne Legal submitted comments on the California Department of Health Care Services' draft guidance implementing the traditional health care practices benefit for Medi-Cal enrollees who are eligible to receive services for treatment of substance use disorder through DMC-ODS programs administered by participating counties. California has become one of the first...

The California Dept. of Health Care Services has posted draft guidance on implementation of the recently-approved Section 1115 amendment for traditional health care practices for Medi-Cal enrollees who are eligible to receive covered services through the Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System.

The draft guidance is fairly lengthy, and includes...

Utah may soon join several other states that include traditional healing services in their Medicaid programs.

In late November, the Utah Department of Health and Human Services requested CMS approval for traditional healing services in its Medicaid program.

Some key points about Utah’s proposal:

Training and qualifications of traditional healing providers may vary widely, due...

CMS has issued a final agency rule with several provisions that will be of interest to Medicaid clinic services tribal health programs. Through the final rule, CMS has amended the Medicaid clinic services’ regulation (at 42 CFR 440.90) to authorize Medicaid coverage for clinic services furnished by IHS and Tribal clinics outside...

The California Medicaid program was notified in October 2024 that federal regulators had approved the request to include traditional healing practices and other supportive services among the array of services to help persons recovering from substance use. This is the first time that the Medi-Cal program will cover traditional health care practices...

Native American tribes face many barriers to developing healthcare programs for their communities, including financing the costs of buying, leasing, and maintaining a suitable space or building in which to provide much-needed healthcare services. One way that tribes can offset these costs is through the “105(l) facility lease program,” available through the...