Smartmoney Small Business profiles a Native American healthcare business

Smartmoney Small Business profiles a Native American hospice run by two sisters that the authors say "transforms" healthcare. I'm not going to post the whole article here, you can read it if interested.

But the synopsis is that Bobbie Jacobs-Ghaffar and Lesa Jacobs run a nonprofit hospice that relies on their cultural competency as Native Americans to serve other underserved Native Americans needing end of life care. They had a negative experience with an aunt who was treated in a hospital for lung cancer, and whose treatment caused a lot of suffering. They take mainly Medicaid, the US government-run healthcare program for the poor. They also take Medicare, which is the program for those over 65, and other state and local government payments and private insurance (if you haven't noticed, the US doesn't have universal health coverage, and the administrative overhead created by multiple insurers is quite large).

Jacobs-Ghaffar has in fact attracted interest from private equity companies and other interested buyers, but she intends to remain true to the original mission. And certainly, lack culturally competence is a global barrier to accessing and making full use of health care services.