An ASUFAC is a six (6) digit number that uniquely identifies a facility. ASUFAC is an acronym for Area - Service Unit - Facilty. ASUFAC codes comprise a standard table within the Indian Health Service (IHS) Standard Codebook and are maintained by IHS. Changes, additions, and deletions can be requested through the Alaska Area Statistical Officer as described below.

Digits 1 and 2 refer to the Area. Alaska Tribal is Area "35."  Alaska non-Tribal is Area "39." The State of Alaska uses 39 to identify its facilities.

Digits 3 and 4 designate service units within the Area.  Alaska has nine (9) service units. They are listed below in the standard service unit format (including the Area digits):

Digits 5 and 6 refer to the type of facility.  Definitions for IHS types of facilities are:

• A hospital is defined as a permanent facility which contains inpatient beds, organized staff including physician services and continuous nursing services, and provides comprehensive health care including diagnosis and treatment for patients.
• A health or medical center is a facility, physically separated from a hospital, with a full range of ambulatory services including at least primary care physicians, nursing, pharmacy, laboratory and X-ray, which are available at least 40 hours a week for ambulatory care.
• A health station or clinic is a facility, physically separated from a hospital or health center, where primary care physician services are available on a regularly scheduled basis but for less than 40 hours a week for outpatient care.

The categories for assigning digits 5 and 6 within these facility types are:

00         IHS Service Unit Administrative Office
01-09    IHS Hospitals
10-19    IHS Health Centers
20-29    IHS School Health Centers
30-49    IHS Health Station
50-79    Communities with schools but with no permanent facility
80-97    Communities with neither IHS facilities nor schools
98         Other location
99         Service Unit Undesignated/Unspecified location

Note: 90-97 is used when the Service Unit code is 00 for non-service unit related offices where health services are not provided.

To request a new ASUFAC code for new facilities, the following information must be submitted to the Statistical Officer:

• Is this an APC workload facility?
• What effective date will this facility become active?
• Will the "active status" effective date and the APC workload effective date be the same?  (Typically they are)
• Have any records been entered for this facility yet?

Once the request has been submitted from Alaska, IHS will assign the request a work order.  When the work order is completed, the new or changed request can be manually entered into the local facility's standard tables prior to regularly scheduled national patch releases.