Indian Health Issues Webcast

Kaiser, APHA, and some other foundation are 1. presenting a webcast of a forum on American Indian health issues. One of the topics will be funding. As I’ve said before, Indian Health Service funding is inadequate. The stats show we spend less per capita on American Indians than we do on the vets.
\rant
I can’t get my patients referred for cataract surgery until their vision is worse than 20/60! If I’ve got a patient with verrucae–tough luck. Only emergency referrals like PDR and RD are being allowed through the referral process right now. Let’s increase funding for American Indians to meet their needs! We signed a treaty, let’s abide by it.
Luckily, some of my patients have Medicare and/or Medicaid. The ones with Medicaid will usually go get their cataract sgx anyway and just pay the $5 copay. But the treaty didn’t say anything about only those on Medicaid can get access to care not provided by the local IHS service unit.
/rant
Anyway, the webcast should be interesting because funding isn’t the only issue. It will be available on 5-9-2005 after 4PM ET.