A federal change to Medicaid funding for services at tribal clinics could help close significant health gaps for Native Americans in Wisconsin, advocates say.
The federal government said in February that it would offer full federal funding for transportation, long-term care and other services provided indirectly by the clinics, as it does for services within clinics.
The change also applies to specialty care by providers outside of the clinics, as long as the clinics still coordinate the patients’ care.
Until now, the federal government has paid for about 60 percent of such care, as it does for other Medicaid services, with the state picking up the other 40 percent.
“Anytime we can look at increasing our access to care, it’s a good thing,” said Jerry Waukau, health administrator for the Menominee Tribal Clinic.
“This could open up more avenues for tribal health centers to get more specialty care for their patients,” said Sashi Gregory, health care policy analyst at the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families.
The state Department of Health Services is working with Wisconsin’s 11 federally recognized tribes and the federal government on assessing the change’s impact, spokeswoman Claire Yunker said.
Native Americans in Wisconsin die at an average age of 63, compared to 77 for whites, according to a Wisconsin Council on Children and Families report in May.
Native American babies are 69 percent more likely than white babies to die within the first year, and the diabetes mortality rate is almost four times higher, the report said.
[For more of this story, written by David Wahlberg, go to http://host.madison.com/wsj/ne...34-17eb80f8f4b9.html]
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