Cash Shortages and Complex Rules Impede Native American Health-Care Access - KFF Health News

Each year, the Indian Health Service rejects tens of thousands of requests to fund outside care that it doesn’t provide, forcing patients to go without treatment or pay big medical bills themselves. The IHS is supposed to provide free care to Native Americans, but it does so only at scattered clinics and hospitals the agency funds and then manages or turns over to tribes to operate. Many of those are in rural…