Feds Consider Ways To Pay Tribal Healers Rules Allow For Reimbursement, But The Paperwork Isn’t Easy

Indian health officials are trying to figure out a fair way to determine the value of traditional Indian healing methods, such as sweat lodges and help from medicine men.

Federal Indian Health Service policy allows reimbursement for healing through traditional medicine men for the costs of sweat lodges and other ceremonies.

Dr. Phillip Smith, associate director for Indian Health Service programs in Rockville, Md., said the guidelines are a gray area because many tribes don’t like to talk about healing ceremonies.

“There are over 550 different tribes,” he said. “Some of the tribes are very private about the way these ceremonies are performed. In some of the tribes, no one is aware that these ceremonies were performed, nor do they wish for anyone to come in to see that the treatment is being performed.”

Costs are hard to define.

“The payment provided is very negotiable,” he said. “A lot of times, it is in-kind services, maybe a basket or a ring.”

Many tribes believe payments shouldn’t be discussed.

Some Shoshone-Bannock tribal members complain that the Indian Health Services clinic at Fort Hall won’t cover traditional healing. Service Unit Director Rebecca Hicks said the issue is being studied.

She said funding for contract health services, or services that have to be provided outside the clinic, already is stretched. As far as she’s concerned, traditional healing falls to the bottom of the priority list.