Fund threatens to terminate insurance of CHC employees

NMI Retirement Fund administrator Richard Villagomez has issued a 15-day notice of termination in the health and life insurance coverage of employees at the Commonwealth Health Center, who are seven pay periods behind in their payment.

The Group Health and Life Insurance Program is an ancilliary service being handled by the Fund administrator for the government. Aetna Global is the carrier for the health insurance, while Individual Assurance Co. handles the life insurance coverage of GHLIP members.

Villagomez, in a two-page letter dated March 6, informed affected hospital employees of the failure of the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. to remit the premiums of members. He gave these employees 15 days upon receipt of the letter to update their accounts or coverage will be stopped.

“Despite GHLIP sending a letter to your employer on Feb. 24, 2012 demanding payment of the insurance premiums within ten days, the premiums have not been received,” states Villagomez’s letter.

“You must pay to the GHLIP Trust Fund 100 percent of your premiums [employer and employee share] for the past seven pay periods to bring your account current and additionally pay 100 percent of your premiums for the next pay period to keep your coverage in place,” adds the demand letter.

He pointed out until such time that the corporation begins to remit their premiums, these affected employees “must pay 100 percent of your premiums to GHLIP Trust within five days of each pay date so that the Trust may remit the premiums on to the carriers and keep your insurance in effect.”

Even if members bring their accounts current but then miss two subsequent pay dates, GHLIP will still terminate their coverage without further notice, Villagomez said.

“GHLIP regrets that this procedure has become necessary, but GHLIP Trust has insufficient funds available to continue your coverage without payment and further delinquencies by the CHC employees could place all other government employees’ coverage at risk,” he added.

Corporation chief executive officer Juan N. Babauta confirmed receiving the demand letter from GHLIP. He said the corporation’s finance department is currently looking at ways on how to meet the unpaid obligation.

“If we are able to come out with enough funding to pay for those immediately, we will do so this week. But still, it depends on the availability of funds,” Babauta said yesterday.

Meantime, the corporation was able to release all paychecks of its about 600 personnel last Friday after generating the amount it needed to meet payroll, Babauta said.

The corporation has to come up with $800,000 each pay period for its personnel’s salaries. It was reported Wednesday last week that the organization was still short of $200,000 to meet the full payroll.

“We were able to pay the payroll [last Friday] because we barely generated enough for payroll alone.but for housing allowance and other allotments, we’re still far behind to cover all our expenses,” he said.