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Pokagon Health Services
The mission of Pokagon Health Services is to improve the health, wellbeing, and quality of life of all patients by empowering them through a lifelong commitment to wellness.
When the year started, our main goal was to get back on track with providing services to Citizens as we had done pre-COVID pandemic. We didn’t know where exactly the pandemic would take us, but we were hopeful to see a reduction in cases with implementation of the COVID vaccine in December 2020. PHS rolled out the vaccine as soon as supplies were delivered to our door and we ended up administering 6646 doses, with 2821 fully vaccinated individuals, and 683 having received a third or booster dose by the end of 2021. Vaccines were not only administered to our Citizens and their families, but we also vaccinated Pokagon Band employees and community residents, we shared vaccines with other tribal health centers in Michigan and took a team down to Indianapolis to administer vaccines to indigenous people residing in the area. And indeed, over the summer, we saw very low positivity rates, which allowed us to regain some sense of normalcy. In January and February, we were able to welcome back furloughed staff and see the return of greatly needed programs such as Optical and the Wellness Center, and to increase availability of Transportation services. We continued to keep our main clinic separate from our COVID respiratory clinic and worked with agencies to bring in extra staff to support our COVID programs so that our current team could focus on the primary care needs of our patients. Optical opened its doors back up as did our Wellness Center, although with limited hours. Telehealth services have become an important part of our programming, particularly in Behavioral Health, as it allows access to more patients, while we continue to offer face to face visits for those who need them.
Director, Priscilla Gatties mshkëkiwgëmëk HEALTH CLINIC
Mshkiki Community Clinic was a large project that started in late 2020 and while construction was completed in April 2021, it took time to equip and fully staff the new clinic. However, despite hurdles, we managed to officially start seeing patients in October. Mshkiki offers PHS the unique opportunity to serve the residents of Benton Township and Benton Harbor for Medical and Dental needs while generating revenue that can be put back into programs and services for Citizens. PHS also had a successful recruitment year, as we were able to bring on board family physician Dr. Delphine Colar to join the clinic team in July. Dr. Colar completed her residency at the University of Arizona as a family physician. She obtained her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine from Marian University in Indianapolis and holds a Master of Science in Chemistry from Jackson State University. Dr. Colar is a Native Navajo and has expressed a strong desire to serve Native American communities. We also added
Dr. Gadia Peabody to the team at Mshkiki. He is a dentist who also specializes in prosthodontics, and we are currently exploring how we can use his unique skills to provide specialized care to both PHS and Mshkiki patients. All in all, PHS saw around 20 new hires to fill either full-time, parttime, or temporary positions in 2021. While pandemic conditions started to worsen in late fall and winter, particularly with the Delta and Omicron variants, PHS continued to provide its full range of patient care services. To boost staff morale, the department held holiday themed employee appreciation days and a door decorating contest that staff had fun participating in and patients got to enjoy as well. Looking back, we have learned many things about how best to serve our patients while continuing to work through the COVID pandemic. The PHS team has remained flexible and resilient, and we thank them for their continued service to our Citizens and patients. Let’s look to 2022 as a year to build on what we have already achieved and continue to serve our patients where Dr. Delphine Colar they need us.
Department Highlights
Behavioral Health
• Reengaged Home-Based Counseling Services and began utilizing the South Bend Administrative Office to meet increased demand for services throughout all age groups. • Created a web-based interactive tool that allows children and parents to increase their engagement with telehealth services. • Continued with an enhanced Social Media Campaign, www.recoveryourpurpose.org, a web-based landing page that provides a contact link for those directly or indirectly struggling with the effects of illicit substances and alcohol. This enhancement has allowed our Peer Recovery services to see an increased number of citizens actively involved with their quest for sobriety.
Clinic
• Continued to provide a full range of Primary Care services while supporting a robust COVID pandemic response program including COVID testing, treatment and vaccinations. • As in previous years, we saw substantial growth in the number of new patients served. Despite the pandemic, the clinic had 262 new patients established with us in 2021. • Beginning Feb 2021, we began tracking visits in our respiratory clinic. From Feb 2021 to Dec 2021, we had 1,435 visits to the respiratory clinic. • Beginning Sept 2021, our clinic began tracking the number of phone calls our nurses, medical assistants, and patient registration handle each month. Combined, these members of our clinic team averaged 5,193 calls per month from September to December 2021. • In collaboration with pharmacy and behavioral health, the clinic continues to grow its medication assisted treatment program for patients with opioid use disorder. • Some medical providers were trained on, and began providing, treatment for Hepatitis C infection.
Community Outreach
• Created the Mno Mithëm – Good/Healthy Food webpage, a collaborative collection of recipes, videos, and links to a variety of healthy Native American Nutrition resources shared with the permission of other Tribal Organizations across the country. • Reinstated several events/programs with some safety restrictions while continuing to combat COVID. Including the Baby
Sitting course, a drive through Baby Celebration, monthly news articles on various health topics and Harvest of the
Month, menu reviews by our Registered Dietician for Elder’s lunches and Zagbëgon, Light the Way 5K, blood drives, and
Kë Gbéshmen lice checks for overnight camps. • Implemented a trial for Libre Monitors to measure their effectiveness with glucose testing among our patients with Diabetes. • Worked with Michigan Tribal Food Access Program and
Walmart Foundation Program, which allowed us to partner with Commodities food program and emergency food program services, to provide more fresh and frozen fruits and veggies with distributions along with portion control and nutrition education packets throughout the year.
Dental
• Continued to provide a range of Dental
Services through the COVID pandemic, assisting 910 more patients than in 2020 with the same number of providers. • Dental Staff helped in the design, organization, and opening of new Mshkiki Clinic.
Optical
• Completed certification through Prevent
Blindness to provide certified vision screenings for children and complete vision screenings for the students at Zagbëgon. • Added Europa Eyewear frame lines to our frame selection. • Provided anti-fog safety goggles to providers as a COVID safety measure.
Other Key Performance Indicators for PHS
2021 2020 2019
TOTAL PHS VISITS 32,041 27,002 34,287
PRC ELIGIBLE PATIENTS 1,501 1,690 1,504
PRC CLAIMS PAID 5,235 5,368 7,228 PHARMACY NUMBER
OF PRESCRIPTIONS 54,467 54,874 53,502
TRANSPORTATION MILES DRIVEN 40,475 58,306 110,306 TOTAL BENEFIT APPLICATIONS 446 516 486
WELLNESS CENTER VISITS 1,618 2,319 11,494
BILLING REVENUE $6,963,186 $5,529,891 $4,926,333
Beaded Barette, Unknown
Pharmacy
• Maintained 79 people on blister pack compliance program. • Medicare Part D Sponsorship program brought in an additional $641,000 in revenue for PHS. • Participated in negotiations with the State of Michigan that resulted in an agreement between the state and 12 Tribal
Nations to bill Medicaid at the All-Inclusive Rate, which promises to result in increased revenue from Pharmacy Billing. • Assisted the Community Outreach team with the trial of Libre Monitors for patients with Diabetes.
Purchased/Referred Care
• Kept claim processing turnaround to under 30 days on average. • Processed a total of 5,451 PRC and Clinic Referrals.
Transportation
• Brought two transporters back from furlough to be able to provide more services to patients with transportation needs. • Implemented a Transportation Needs policy to allow for transport of referred visits to Pokagon Band Citizens.
Wellness
• Collaborated with the clinic to provide care to 23 patients over the course of 500 sessions. • Helped several participants complete their first 5K and 10K runs as well as numerous outdoor events. • Assisted over 1,600 individuals with preventative medicine and quality of life directives.
Mshkiki Community Clinic
• Completed build out of clinic, hired, credentialed, and trained new staff, and performed all tasks necessary to prepare clinic for opening, i.e. stocking of necessary supplies, installation of
IT equipment, electronic dental and medical record set up, etc. • Mshkiki Community Clinic opened doors to patients in
October 2021. • Served community dental and medical needs by seeing patients without a significant wait time.
BEHAVIORAL HEALTH
CLINIC
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
DENTAL
OPTICAL
TRANSPORTATION
MSHKIKI COMMUNITY CLINIC
2021 PHS Visits - 32,041 Total Visits
6,342
4,357
1,266 4,052
327 768
BEHAVIORAL HEALTH
CLINIC
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
DENTAL
OPTICAL
PHARMACY
MSHKIKI COMMUNITY CLINIC
FWCR WELLNESS CENTER
2021 Billing Revenue -$6,963,186 Total Revenue
$789,450
