The Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. is looking at a new kiosk that will bill patients in real-time in an effort to improve its billing system.<\/p>\n
CHCC chief executive officer Esther Mu\u00f1a, who was guest speaker during last Wednesday\u2019s Saipan Chamber of Commerce meeting at the Fiesta Resort & Spa Saipan, said that CHCC is looking at securing a kiosk that allows real-time billing and payment before a patient leaves the hospital. Real-time means occurring immediately.<\/p>\n
Currently, the Commonwealth Health Center\u2019s billing system is not as efficient, running on a billing software provided by the Indian Health Service\u2014for free.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe IHS created this system, which we have access to for free. We have been using that ever since,\u201d she said. With the free billing system, Mu\u00f1a noted some challenges, especially since the system was not specifically created for the CNMI situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a system [not necessarily] designed\u2026for us, so we are tweaking it. When we tweak it, there are some challenges,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have room for improvement\u2014we know that.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Mu\u00f1a, a billing system known as \u201cEpic\u201d is the more ideal option. However, the last time she checked, the system costs $60 million to $70 million. She suspects the price to be at $100 million currently.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have the money to pay for that system,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The kiosk, Mu\u00f1a said, would allow for the real-time billing and bill-compilation of patients once they are discharged.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026You can go in, check in, and you can even use your credit card [to pay],\u201d she said. \u201c\u2026It automatically tells you to pay [the hospital bills] before you get out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1a noted that CHC\u2019s financial problems are not limited to billing concerns. She notes that majority of CHC receivables are actually uncompensated care.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are [hospital billings] that are uncollected and uncollectible because people just don\u2019t have the money,\u201d she said. Some are even uninsured. \u201cWe can demand them to pay, but if they don\u2019t have the money, what can we do?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. is looking at a new kiosk that will bill patients in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[666,2364,22883,7911],"class_list":["post-286034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-chcc","tag-esther-mu","tag-indian-health-service","tag-saipan-chamber"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286034","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=286034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}