Medical Referral wants budget to double

CNMI Medical Referral program director Ronald D. Sablan, right, talks with Sen. Sixto K. Igisomar (R-Saipan) after yesterday’s Senate Committee on Fiscal Affairs’ budget hearing at the Senate chamber at the Jose P. Mafnas Memorial Building. (Jon Perez)

The CNMI Medical Referral Services Program is asking for an operating budget of $8.4 million for the coming fiscal year to better serve the people of the CNMI who avail of the service.

Gov. Ralph DLG Torres has allotted $4 million for the program with the money coming from the expected $39 million in gross gaming tax collected from Best Sunshine International, Ltd’s live training facility.

Torres identified the Medical Referral Program as one of the core areas where money must be immediately set aside to help patients who are seeking treatment in Guam, Hawaii, or the Philippines.

The money, which is in accordance with Public Law 18-56 or the Exclusive Gaming Tax, also aims to supplement the program with technical support to provide critical service to the people.

Medical Referral program director Ronald D. Sablan said their agency is asking to double the budget from $4 million to $8.4 million. He added they based the budget that they are asking on the last three to eight fiscal years that the program had spent.

So far, they have already spent $5 million in actual expenditures for FY 2016 with $2.1 million in the Philippines alone. “Because we’re paying for Medicaid patients. These are medical costs that are not covered especially in the Philippines and in Guam.”

“What we’re asking for is basically what we feel that we need. Of course you cannot project medical conditions so we based on historical data on how much we need to help the people under the medial referral program,” said Sablan.

He added that their program would only need less than half of the $8.4 million if they were not paying the expenses incurred by Medicaid patients. Medicaid is not applicable in the Philippines while a lot of providers in Guam do not accept Medicaid.

“Because they don’t have a contract, Medicaid here has a separate contract with every business and institution in Guam or anywhere else. If they don’t have contract, they can’t get paid, and we end up footing the cost. And that’s why we spend too much.”

The CNMI has an average of 800 medical referral patients a year that go to the Philippines, Guam, or Hawaii. These are patients who need to go off-island since the treatment or care that they are seeking is not available on Saipan.

The patient’s doctor must first submit a referral where a medial referral committee—composed of Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. and private physicians—will review and decide if the patient needs to go and seek treatment overseas.

There are also instances that doctors or medical specialists come to Saipan and spend one month or more to see patients and advice them for further treatment.