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Reyes: CHC has stopped billing HPMR
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Posted on Mar 30 2006
Aware of the government’s lack of funds, the Commonwealth Health Center has voluntarily stopped billing the NMI Retirement Fund’s third party administrator for group health insurance since about a year ago, according to a Fund official.
“CHC is not billing Hawaii Pacific Medical Referral anymore because it’s not getting paid,” said Fund administrator Karl T. Reyes in an interview Wednesday.
HPMR serves as the administrator of the Fund’s group health insurance program. As such, it handles all the billings charged to Group Health members. The Fund pays the company to process, evaluate, and settle the billings.
Reyes said that, as of now, the Fund has yet to pay a total of $9 million to HPMR to pay off health providers, including CHC. The bulk of the amount, which is $7 million, is actually payable to CHC.
It is not known if this amount forms part of the $28 million recently cited by Public Health Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez as collectibles from the NMI Fund.
Reyes said the Fund does not really know the exact amount because CHC has not given the total billings.
He said, though, that the $27 million or $28 million debt to CHC was incurred from 1996 to 2003.
Villagomez told the Senate during his confirmation hearing that government-run programs have amassed a $62-million debt to the Commonwealth’s only hospital over the past six years.
These include $32 million under Medicaid accounts, $28 million under GHI, and $2 million from other agencies.
