Absentee Shawnee Tribal Health Update

This past month has been a very great month for all the health programs. We have be reorganizing some of the programs and adding a few more benefits for the tribal members. In the Shawnee Clinic, Dr. Walsh is a part time internal medicine physician who is slowly building up her practice. Because of this, there are many patients still waiting to get appointments and because of the need for another provider, we are going to add a full time physician in Shawnee. We are currently advertising for medical providers and hope to have someone hired by the end of the year. This will help to add more patients to the Shawnee location and have a full time medical provider in the Shawnee Clinic that help with the patient load currently being carried by Stacy Curtis, PA. Once we get a physician hired, we will make sure to announce this in the tribal newsletter.

In the Little Axe clinic, the behavioral health department has been under the direction of Interim Director Monty Blake. The director’s position had been advertised and many qualified applicants were interviewed. We did make an offer and an applicant has accepted the position. We are pleased to announce that tribal member Dara Thorpe has accepted the position as Behavioral Health Director and will begin her new position on November 1st. We are looking forward to moving that program in the right direction and to start taking care of our patients in need of behavioral health counseling. Monty has been doing a good job and once the director is in place, will move back the Shawnee clinic full time. Please help me in welcoming Dara back to the health programs as our new director.

General Council will be held in the Little Axe Clinic on November 10th so we hope everyone comes out to the meeting and go through the many different departments who will have booths set up to display the programs they offer to tribal members and patients. We will be having a health fair and tribal members can have their blood pressure checked and join in drawings for door prizes provided by some of the departments and programs within the health systems. Please come out and enjoy the activities such as the fun walk that will begin at 8:00 am. We will be serving breakfast right after the walk. Breakfast is being provided by the AST Diner.

Our music department is gradually outgrowing his space in the clinic. Phil Bradley is doing a great job and his student numbers are increasing. With the help of the other departments within the health program, Phil is putting together a Christmas program to be held in the front lobby of the Little Axe Clinic. This Christmas concert has been scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 13th. More information will be available in next month’s newsletter but we wanted to get the information out so that you can make plans to be here for our 1st Annual Christmas Concert.

The health programs continue to grow and we are so glad that with growth, collections also grow. We are well over the total amount of third party collections compared to this time last year. This is due to the addition of all our providers and the fantastic ladies that work in the business office. They work very hard at keeping up with the coding of encounters and the billing.

We are now able to file our SoonerCare claims electronically, something that we have not been able to do in the past. With the electronic submittals, we are able to receive reimbursement back much faster. The business office staff are very diligent in their work and it shows by the claims processed daily and the revenue generated by our many providers. A huge thanks goes out to the business office manager, Jennifer Harmon and the finance manager, Brenda Allen-Duboise. These two ladies have taken on the business office and have done a great job. Keep up the good work!

Something new occurring at the Little Axe Clinic that is in the process is the construction of a walking trail. We have had many questions about the use of the parking lot after hours for people to walk since it lit up at nights. Since we have many people who like to walk either across the dam or at the Resource Center after work, we decided to put in a walking trail around the outer loop of the parking lot in order to allow more people to walk after hours in a safe environment. The clinic has a full time, around the clock security department. As long as the walkers let the staff know they will be walking at night or on the weekends, they can be prepared for them. This is s a safety issue that will be a benefit to all those who wish to exercise in an area that will be free from traffic. We hope you will come out to walk once the walking trail is in place.

Enjoy the upcoming holidays with your family and friends. With Thanksgiving and Christmas rapidly approaching, we wish you health and happiness.

Beverly Felton, MSN, RN

Executive Director