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Fund board approves HPMR extension
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Posted on Aug 18 2005
The NMI Retirement Fund’s board of trustees formally approved Tuesday the contract extension of Hawaii Pacific Medical Referral up to end of this year, acknowledging the government’s lack of preparedness to privatize its group health insurance program.
Fund administrator Karl T. Reyes said Wednesday that the board voted to extend HPMR services up to Dec. 31, 2005.
The HPMR’s extended contract was supposed to expire this month.
HPMR acts as third party administrator for the Fund’s group health insurance program, negotiating and processing billings issued by healthcare providers to the government.
Reyes has said that HPMR will continue to provide services until a new health insurance company is chosen to handle the entire program.
The government is currently negotiating with one company, SelectCare, on the privatization of the program.
Reyes said earlier that the negotiation has temporarily stopped and will resume in November because the government’s consultant, Hawaii-based Karen Bauder, would be busy with Guam.
Bauder, who is reportedly paid $90,000 per year, is also employed by the Guam government for its own group health insurance program.
Reyes said that, although the Fund is negotiating with SelectCare, the actual privatization contract has yet to be awarded. SelectCare is one of only two companies that responded to the Fund’ Request for Proposal to privatize the group health plan.
Reyes said the negotiations deal with major concerns, especially on costs and types of services.
HPMR’s three-year contract with the Fund originally expired in July 2004. Due to the government’s lack of preparedness to implement the privatization, the contract has been getting extended for over a year now.
