About Us
Southcentral Foundation is an Alaska Native-owned 501(c)(3) nonprofit health care corporation delivering comprehensive outpatient and inpatient regional health services to more than 70,000 Alaska Native and American Indian people living in the Indian Health Service’s Anchorage Service Unit. Southcentral Foundation also provides a wide array of statewide outpatient and inpatient health services to more than 155,000 Alaska Native and American Indian people living throughout Alaska.
Incorporated by Cook Inlet Region, Inc. (CIRI) in 1982, Southcentral Foundation is one of CIRI’s designated Tribal Organizations under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, Public Law 93-638, and the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, Public Law 94-437. Under the Tribal authority of CIRI, Southcentral Foundation is authorized to provide core governmental services and administer programs to deliver health care to Alaska Native people living within the Municipality of Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, excluding the services provided by the Native Village of Eklutna, the Knik Tribal Council, and the Chickaloon Village Traditional Council. Southcentral Foundation is the largest of CIRI’s Socially Driven Enterprises, employing more than 3,000 people in more than 80 health programs located at more than 40 health clinics and facilities across Alaska.
Southcentral Foundation’s first contract with the Indian Health Service under the Indian Self-Determination Act began in 1983. The agreement included dentistry, optometry, community health, and injury-control services. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Southcentral Foundation’s Tribal health programs grew to cover a broad range of medical, dental, behavioral health, and substance use services, including Dena A Coy, a behavioral health and substance use residential treatment program for women, and Quyana Qenq’a, a behavioral health day treatment program for adults.
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Southcentral Foundation’s first contract with the Indian Health Service under the Indian Self-Determination Act began in 1983. The agreement included dentistry, optometry, community health, and injury-control services. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Southcentral Foundation’s Tribal health programs grew to cover a broad range of medical, dental, behavioral health, and substance use services, including Dena A Coy, a behavioral health and substance use residential treatment program for women, and Quyana Qenq’a, a behavioral health day treatment program for adults.
Southcentral Foundation’s first contract with the Indian Health Service to deliver health services at the old Alaska Native Medical Center in downtown Anchorage began in 1993, when it assumed direct operation of a portion of the outpatient psychiatry services provided at the hospital.
On October 1, 1994, along with a dozen other Alaska Native Tribal entities, Southcentral Foundation entered into the Alaska Tribal Health Compact – a self-governance compact with the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services pursuant to Title V of the Indian Self-Determination Act. As a self-governance compactor, Southcentral Foundation assumed control and funding of its healthcare programs and services and established the general terms of the government-to-government relationship between Southcentral Foundation and the United States.
As part of its initial self-governance compact and funding agreement with the Indian Health Service in 1994, SCF assumed direct operation of portions of numerous health services delivered at the old Alaska Native Medical Center hospital, including Urgent Care, Psychiatry, Family Medicine, Pediatrics, and Women’s Health services.
On June 2, 1997, two new healthcare facilities serving Alaska Native people opened in Anchorage. The new Alaska Native Medical Center hospital – located less than six miles from the old hospital in downtown Anchorage – began to serve customer-owners. And the newly built Yagheli Shesh Qenq’a Anchorage Native Primary Care Center also began to deliver a broad range of comprehensive health services. Recognizing that the new hospital would not be large enough to accommodate all necessary health services provided to the Alaska Native people it serves, CIRI simultaneously built the Yagheli Shesh Qenq’a ANPCC directly across the street from the new hospital. As a result, the outpatient clinics for Psychiatry, Family Medicine, Pediatrics, and Women’s Health previously located in the old hospital in downtown Anchorage moved to Yagheli Shesh Qenq’a ANPCC on June 2, 1997. SCF purchased Yagheli Shesh Qenq’a ANPCC from CIRI in 1998.
Five months after the new Alaska Native Medical Center hospital and the new Yagheli Shesh Qenq’a ANPCC opened, in November 1997, Section 325 of Public Law 105-83 was enacted. Pursuant to Section 325(d), SCF assumed direct ownership and management of an extensive array of outpatient and inpatient health services delivered at both facilities to the 55 rural communities that comprise the Anchorage Service Unit of the Indian Health Service, as well as to all Alaska Native and American Indian people living throughout Alaska. Since the beginning of the assumption of these vital services, Southcentral Foundation instituted significant philosophical reformations and other changes in the design and administration of these programs. Southcentral Foundation instituted a total system-wide transformation of care, increasing the quality and adaptability of programs —and more importantly—the accountability of health providers and customer-owners alike. As a result, the Alaska Native people served by Southcentral Foundation are in charge of designing and delivering the health care they receive.
Over the last 25 years, 11 federally recognized tribes throughout Alaska have individually requested that Southcentral Foundation agree to be their designated Tribal Organization that is authorized to provide core governmental services and to directly administer health programs to their rural communities under the Indian Self-Determination Act and the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.
