Nansemond Indian Nation grows Hampton Roads health network starting with flagship Portsmouth clinic

PORTSMOUTH — For the past few years, Gloucester resident Linda Mixon has been spending six months at a time in her native Arizona just to qualify for health care.

Mixon, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, has lived in Hampton Roads for almost 50 years. But when her husband retired, she wasn’t old enough for Medicare and she developed a severe case of vasculitis, a blood vessel inflammation. Finding and affording treatment was so difficult she opted to stay with family and reestablish Arizona residency.

Then last fall while attending the Nansemond Indian Nation’s powwow, she learned about their new initiative, Fishing Point Healthcare, a network intended to provide state-of-the-art care to members of any Indigenous tribes as well as all Virginia Medicaid recipients. The clinic is also open to people without insurance who meet Medicaid criteria.

“I’m just glad that they’re here — not just for myself, but for everyone,” Mixon said Saturday at a community day to celebrate the completion of Fishing Point’s flagship clinic at 2929 London Blvd. in Portsmouth.

Behind her, dozens of people enjoyed the block party vibe as they danced in front of a DJ stand, stood in line at several food trucks or supervised their children in a bounce house.

The facility, including its in-house pharmacy, opened on a limited basis in February. Recently, providers there have been treating about 20 patients a day, said David “Black Feather” Darling, Fishing Point’s board chairman. Now, the rest of the facility has been fully renovated to offer dentistry, physical therapy, radiology and a lab.

Dr. Steven Pulley, Chief Medical Consultant for Fishing Point Healthcare Saturday, July 20, 2024 in the dental section of the newly completed Fishing Point Healthcare Clinic on London Blvd in Portsmouth. The dental clinic will be opening Oct. 1, 2024. Members of the community gathered for an open house to get a look at the new clinic, with food and entertainment. Bill Tiernan/ For The Virginian-Pilot

A similar clinic is under construction in Newport News with a third planned for Norfolk.

“We have a strong tradition of really being stewards of the land,” Darling said. “That’s not just the ecosystem. It’s the people who inhabit it, too.”

The Nansemond Nation finally secured federal recognition in 2018, more than 30 years after its recognition in Virginia and following almost a century of erasure. That recognition ultimately made it easier for the tribe to manage Medicaid patients than most other providers, who are in many ways disincentivized to accept them, Darling said.

The federal government makes some basic guarantees to Indigenous nations, Darling said, but under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act passed in 1975, those nations have the sovereign right to take responsibility for those services themselves and become federal contractors.

“We enjoy a different rate than a private provider would as an extension of the federal government,” Darling said.

Fishing Point Healthcare started in 2023 with a home health care service, which generated enough capital to move forward with the clinics, Darling said. He declined to provide further details about cost because Fishing Point is privately held.

Providing health care only to the Nansemond people would have been cost-prohibitive because of their low numbers, Darling said. Opening care to Medicaid recipients generates revenue, giving the Nansemond Nation a path to financial security.

Providing preventive and follow-up care to people who often have little to no other access to it should help relieve strain on local emergency departments and lower public costs, Darling said.

Visitors to Saturday’s event, from some of the clinic’s first patients to its employees and neighbors in the community, overwhelmingly agreed.

“We need this so, so bad,” said Mary Sherrod, a nurse with Sentara Health. “I see so many people that need the help.”

For more information on the Portsmouth clinic, call 757-891-9010 or visit fishingpointhc.com .

Have a health care or science story, question or concern? Contact Katrina Dix, 757-222-5155, katrina.dix@virginiamedia.com