Health Services

ᏅᏩᏙᎯᏯᏛ ᎢᏗᏓᏛᏁᏗ

ᎢᏳᏓᎵᎭ ᎠᏛᏛᏅ ᏗᏛᏛᎲᏍᎩ

IHS’ decision to grant this new allocated funding to the UKB creates confusion for UKB and Cherokee Nation patients.
A new UKB-run PRC program would not provide any funding to exclusive UKB members that are not already being provided to exclusive UKB members by Cherokee Nation’s PRC program.

With the health, safety, and convenience of all Oklahoma tribal citizens at the forefront of our mind, we believe this funding is unwarranted, unnecessary, and redundant.
Cherokee Nation maintains the largest tribally-operated health care system in the country. We provide high quality care to local tribal members in need. Our existing health care infrastructure and array of services provided in northeast Oklahoma — particularly, in the city of Tahlequah — renders this funding to UKB a wasteful use of taxpayer dollars that will only sow confusion and undermine the quality of care for tribal citizens in Oklahoma.
A new UKB-run PRC program would not provide any services that are not already offered to exclusive UKB members by Cherokee Nation’s Health Services.
IHS’ new funding could force providers to refer Cherokee Nation and UKB patients under two separate systems, creating a complex and cumbersome approach that undermines Cherokee Nation’s commitment to continuity of care.
Ultimately, this could mean exclusive UKB patients are referred out from their trusted physicians, new red tape would be put between patients and their doctors, and it could limit a provider’s ability to serve patients.

Cherokee Nation operates a tribal health system and provides care for exclusive UKB tribal members without having received funding specific to UKB. There is no discrimination by Cherokee Nation against exclusive UKB tribal members. Instead, the Cherokee Nation would appear to be the provider of choice for most UKB patients. This agreement threatens that.
Allowing the UKB to start another PRC program inside the Cherokee Nation Reservation not only duplicates funding provided by IHS for Cherokee Nation but it also undermines our efforts. Having UKB with their own PRC program will create confusion on the part of the public and other health systems.
UKB’s new IHS funding could force providers to refer Cherokee Nation patients and exclusive UKB patients under two separate systems, creating a complex and cumbersome approach.
This new funding eliminates UKB patients’ ability to access Cherokee Nation’s PRC program.
Ultimately, this means exclusive UKB patients are referred out from their trusted physicians in the Cherokee Nation health system to PRC doctors approved and coordinated by UKB. It could also limit a provider’s ability to make decisions for patients and lead to a reduction in services.

Cherokee Nation, in partnership with IHS, has made significant fiscal investments to ensure that all tribal citizens within the Cherokee Nation Reservation— exclusive UKB members included—receive the highest quality health care for generations to come.
The facilities see more than two million patient visits each year, and Cherokee Nation has built clinics and health care centers so that no Cherokee Nation citizen living on the Reservation is more than 30 minutes away from care.
Cherokee Nation operates a 469,000 square foot outpatient facility in Tahlequah, and are in the process of constructing a new hospital on the land next to this site.
Cherokee Nation receives PRC funding from IHS to refer patients to outside providers. This funding is based on a service area. Claremore service area is also within the Cherokee Nation reservation boundaries. This UKB funding also is a duplication of the funding and efforts of the Claremore service area PRC program.

This funding would let UKB build their own health care clinic, as they stated they would do in their December Council meeting even though the funding is strictly PRC funding and only to be used for PRC, wherever it deems appropriate on Cherokee Nation’s Reservation, which would create serious legal and jurisdictional issues.
As a matter of law and history, Cherokee Nation—alone—is the treaty tribe to all of the 18th and 19th century treaties between Cherokee Nation and the United States, and thus exclusively holds those treaty rights that apply to the Cherokee Nation Reservation. Under these treaties, the Cherokee Nation possesses sovereign authority over the entirety of the Cherokee Nation Reservation.
If built within the Reservation, an IHS-funded UKB health clinic would be a clear violation of Cherokee Nation’s territorial sovereignty.