Nurse advice line coverage in the Phoenix Area.
The Phoenix Area covers Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. TULQ provides 24/7 telephone nurse triage for the IHS service units, 638 tribal health programs, and Urban Indian Organizations that serve it.
The Phoenix Area spans a mix of urban and deeply rural service units across three states, from a major medical center in metropolitan Phoenix to small clinics serving a few hundred patients. That range means after-hours call volume varies by more than an order of magnitude between facilities in the same Area.
Facilities and programs in this Area
The Phoenix Area includes IHS-operated service units alongside tribally operated 638 programs and compacts. Illustrative facilities:
- Phoenix Indian Medical Center
- Colorado River Service Unit
- Uintah & Ouray Service Unit
- Southern Bands Health Center
This is not a complete list. The Indian Health Service maintains the authoritative directory of Area facilities and service units, and tribally operated programs change hands between IHS and tribal operation over time.
Recent procurement activity
Phoenix has run recent market research on both ends of the volume range. RFQ RFQ-26-PHX-046 covered the Colorado River, Uintah & Ouray, and Southern Bands service units together, facilities whose published call estimates ranged from roughly ten to a couple hundred calls a month. Separately, Sources Sought SS-25-PHX-002 addressed the Phoenix Indian Medical Center under NAICS 621399, as Buy Indian competitive.
The multi-site structure of RFQ-26-PHX-046 is worth noting: small facilities are cheaper to cover when they are bundled, because the fixed cost of standing up coverage is spread across them.
These notices are matters of public record and are summarized here as context. A Sources Sought notice is market research, not a commitment to solicit or award, and notices are routinely amended or superseded. Work from the current posting. More for contracting officers.
What coverage looks like here
The service is the same everywhere: one number, answered any hour by a U.S. state-licensed registered nurse working Schmitt-Thompson telephone triage protocols, with the encounter documented and returned to the facility. What changes by Area is the context around it, how far the nearest emergency department is, what the winter looks like, whether the caller has reliable cellular service, and how the program is funded.
For IHS-operated service units, after-hours coverage is typically procured through the Area office and appears publicly on SAM.gov. For 638 programs and compacts, it is procured directly by the tribe or tribal organization, with no IHS solicitation required. Both paths are covered on our tribal health page.
Elsewhere in the system
All twelve IHS Areas
The full map: which states each Area covers and where nurse advice line procurement has been active.
Read →Built for Indian Country
Why a tribal health program's after-hours problem is not the same problem the mainstream vendors solve.
Read →Protecting the PRC budget
How avoidable emergency department use draws against a finite Purchased/Referred Care allocation.
Read →Sources
- Indian Health Service Area office and facility directories.
- SAM.gov contract opportunities, Indian Health Service notices.
- Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, P.L. 93-638 (25 U.S.C. § 5301).
Facility lists are illustrative, drawn from public IHS materials, and change over time as programs move between IHS and tribal operation. TULQ is launching in 2026; this page describes intended coverage, not past contract performance.
Coverage for the Phoenix Area.
Tell us which facility or program you are scoping and we will walk through what after-hours coverage would look like for that service population.