Uncompensated care makes up most of the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp.\u2019s huge deficit that has now amounted to $18.85 million.<\/p>\n
CHCC chief financial officer Derek Sasamoto disclosed during the budget hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee and in a board meeting with Gov. Ralph DLG Torres, Lt. Gov. Arnold I. Palacios, and Finance Secretary David Atalig that CHCC has managed to boost its revenue from $30 million to $60 million annually but, because of uncompensated care, the \u201chuge deficit\u201d of the hospital persists. In fact, uncompensated care is increasing and has reached $18 million in the current fiscal year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have done a lot to grow resources, but the shortfall still exists,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sasamoto also mentioned the unfunded medical services CHCC provides to government agencies, as well as the central government owing CHCC $9.6 million for fiscal year 2019 appropriations. This comes as Sasamoto also expressed concerns that CHCC has not been getting its monthly allotments. <\/p>\n
According to Sasamoto, more than 90% of CHCC expenditures are for hospital services. \u201cOver 90% of what we spend goes straight into services, straight into the hospital, and we can prove that. \u2026So to take away from the services\u2026it\u2019s going to be a difficult decision, and those are the kind of choices we have to always make on a daily basis,\u201d said Sasamoto. <\/p>\n
Esther Mu\u00f1a, CHCC\u2019s chief executive officer, echoed Sasamoto. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult for us when we\u2019re dealing with health. It\u2019s always unpredictable,\u201d she said. \u201cWe may have patients that are really healthy one month, then the next month, we have very sick patients.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mu\u00f1a added that health care is not cheap, and it\u2019s always been a \u201cstruggle,\u201d since the hospital has to verify if they have adequate supplies such as medical, pharmaceutical, etc., as well as having a medical team, nursing team, especially with staff shortages, to render health care services.<\/p>\n
Both Mu\u00f1a and Sasamoto pointed out that CHCC does not turn away patients. Sasamoto added that the Commonwealth Health Center keeps patients no matter their ability to pay, and that CHCC always asks for support every year because it\u2019s considered a community issue.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Sasamoto says that the $704,005.44 in local appropriations for fiscal year 2019 was spent on medical supply expenses, but he indicated that CHC\u2019s medical supply costs for the first two months of fiscal year 2019 was over $1 million, which only covered about 1.5 months of its medical supplies that are needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the services provided, costs incurred, supplies consumed and others with no corresponding return. It is a pure loss to CHCC,\u201d Sasamoto said. \u201cThis condition alone demands high priority for appropriation support.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the House Ways and Means Committee budget hearing, Sasamoto said that if CHCC gets 50% of the requested allotment, it would \u201ccreate a tremendous impact for CHCC in terms of meeting liabilities and obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sasamoto added that CHCC provides services to the Department of Corrections, but DOC hasn\u2019t paid. \u201cWe send the bills but, unfortunately, the department has not been able to satisfy its obligation,\u201d which now amounts to over $1.8 million, Sasamoto said. <\/p>\n
Additionally, CHCC attends to patients with social issues. \u201cFor example, patients who have no home to return to for various reasons. CHCC accommodates these patients who occupy bed space and need treatment, which also equates to lost revenue,\u201d said Sasamoto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Uncompensated care makes up most of the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp.\u2019s huge deficit that has now…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":327350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[666],"class_list":["post-327331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-chcc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327331","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}