Watchlist: ‘Native American community excited as Medicaid now covers traditional healing’

By Kamiah Koch

Social media/digital journalist

In early March, the New Mexico Health Care Authority announced that the state’s Medicaid coverage would include traditional healing medicine for Native Americans in participating Tribes/pueblos.

Local news channel KRQE reported this update in a news clip published to YouTube Friday, March 13. 

“Traditional medicine practices have been used for generations,” KRQE Reporter Marilyn Upchurch said. “Healing can include herbs, prayers and ceremonies.”

With this new coverage, Native American Medicaid members in New Mexico need to see providers at participating Tribal facilities to get a referral to a traditional healer.

Associate Director for the Center for Native American Health at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Norman Cooeyate told Upchurch he is ready to see traditional medicine recognized as legitimate healthcare.

“This policy really aligns with the health system of how Native communities understand health and healing, which is health is not just in the physical form, we have what we call relational care or self-care,” Cooeyate said.

Taylor Russel is a University of New Mexico medical student and Native American. Russel told KRQE that her grandparents were traditional healers and as a future physician, she hopes to bridge that gap.   

According to KRQE, the Navajo Nation is the first participant in the five-year program.

You can watch the entire video on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ52QBK-YYg.