Tribe sues Nebraska officials over doctor riff

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http://indiancountrynews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11932&Itemid=109

An American Indian tribe is suing Nebraska health officials and the state attorney general, accusing them of ignoring a new provision in the federal health overhaul law that allows tribes to hire doctors not licensed by the state in which they practice.

The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and the doctor it hired, Rosa M. Huguet, filed the lawsuit in Omaha’s U.S. District Court. Huguet, who is licensed in Puerto Rico, was hired last July after the federal health care law was enacted as the director and only doctor of the tribe’s Fred LeRoy Health and Wellness Center in Omaha.

Before enactment of the federal health care law, tribal doctors had to be licensed by the state within whose boundaries he or she would practice. The new law allows tribal doctors simply to hold a license in any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia or a U.S. territory, the lawsuit says.

Despite that, state officials have refused to recognize Huguet and have ordered her to stop practicing, the tribe contends.