A lawmaker who opposes an increase in the Commonwealth Health Center\u2019s room rates believes the increases are not official yet as the hospital\u2019s governing board has yet to vote on it.<\/p>\n
Sen. Teresita Santos (R-Rota), who chairs the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare, told Saipan Tribune yesterday that \u201cnothing [is] set in stone\u201d yet, despite earlier reports of room rate increases at CHC.<\/p>\n
She said she was able to discuss the matter with Lauri Ogumoro, board chair of the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp., which runs CHC, after \u201creceiving numerous calls from concerned citizens.\u201d <\/p>\n
According to Santos, Ogumoro indicated that the CHCC board has yet to take action on the matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThus, nothing is set in stone until the [CHCC] board of trustees meet\u2026to review, discuss, adopt, or approve or disapprove the proposed rate increase,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Santos added that she also talked with Rep. Jose Itibus (R-Saipan), who chairs the House of Representatives Committee on Health.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026 We have decided to defer any action pending the [CHCC] board of trustees\u2019 decision on the proposed rate increase,\u201d she told Saipan Tribune, noting that the CHCC board is expected to meet this Thursday to discuss the increases. <\/p>\n
In a Monday news statement from CHCC, the corporation informed the public as well as insurance providers that it has updated its fees and charges for room and board. <\/p>\n
The increases in fees and charges\u2014at least 21.42 percent in increases\u2014were described in the statement as \u201cnecessary to keep up with the increasing costs of healthcare services in the CNMI.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statement noted that the last adjustment of fees and charges date back to last 2012.<\/p>\n
In the latest round of increases, the highest increase is on a semiprivate room and board, with a per-day-fee of $2,800 as opposed to the previous $1,090. This is a 156.88-percent increase compared to the previous rate.<\/p>\n
The lowest increase percentage-wise went to the private room and board rate, or the isolation room, which now costs $2,550, as opposed to its previous per day rate of $2,100. The fee saw a 21.42-percent increase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A lawmaker who opposes an increase in the Commonwealth Health Center\u2019s room rates believes the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[666,3829,38,17811],"class_list":["post-262557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-chcc","tag-lauri-ogumoro","tag-saipan-tribune","tag-senate-committee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262557","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\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}