The Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. will continue to use the services of the Guam Marianas Collection Agency for their billing and collections, particularly with their backlogs.<\/p>\n
According to CHCC chief operating officer Esther Mu\u00f1a, the hospital currently has backlogs with their billing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only way to do it on the date of service is likely by using our own personnel. But in the meantime, we do have backlogs. So those backlogs will continue to go to the [Guam Marianas Collection Agency], for example,\u201d Mu\u00f1a said.<\/p>\n
Last month, CHCC signed an agreement called Net Metering and Intergovernmental Cooperative Agreement with the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. to address the millions of dollars the hospital owes the utilities company. <\/p>\n
Aside from required payments as well as the construction of a solar power system at the hospital, the agreement requires CHCC to improve their financial management.<\/p>\n
NMICA states that for clinic and ancillary services billing, \u201cthe policies, practices, and hiring of direct personnel, and initiation of place of service billing shall commence\u2026within six months\u201d while for inpatient billing, \u201cCHCC may generate a preliminary bill for inpatient charges upon discharge within nine months of the execution of the NMICA\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1a said they would eventually establish their own system and personnel to handle billing but there would be \u201coutliers\u201d where they may need the help of a provider in order to process. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo completely phase them out, it\u2019s probably impossible,\u201d Mu\u00f1a said. \u201cBilling and coding is complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1a said billing services for hospital and healthcare keep changing, the recent one being the use of ICD 10 from ICD 9 last October.<\/p>\n
ICD, or the International Classification of Diseases, is used to standardize codes for medical conditions and procedures. It is implemented by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the American Medical Association and a mandate that applies to all parties covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, not just providers who bill Medicare or Medicaid.<\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1a said the new ICD increases the number of diagnosis codes to specify what procedures or healthcare was provided for a patient. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat in itself is a transition that created a gap in our billing system,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1a said they were able to improve and close the gap in their billing and collection. <\/p>\n
From last year when they were billing within two years\u2019 time, Mu\u00f1a said most of our bills are now within one year\u2019s time. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to improve our financial management system. We\u2019ve improved so much already over the years. We see that with how we\u2026are able to pay our vendors, we are able to pay our payroll,\u201d Mu\u00f1a said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we want to continue to do, what we basically plan to do with this, what we\u2019re trying to show with this agreement is, for example the clinic and ancillary services, we are looking at identifying the weaknesses and gaps, looking at more gaps,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. will continue to use the services of the Guam Marianas Collection…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[666,8975,8976,8846],"class_list":["post-217940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-chcc","tag-gmca","tag-icd","tag-nmica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}