$7,901 for a circumcision

On March 25, a working class mother took her son to the Commonwealth Health Center for his circumcision, just two weeks after his 18th birthday. The procedure, said to be a simple and quick one, lasted exactly an hour and nine minutes.

The next day, the mother went back to the hospital to pick up her bill and arrange for payments. Upon being handed the receipt for her son’s hospital bill, she was shocked to see the amount she was being made to pay. A charge she thought was going to amount to no more than $300 actually stated $7,901.82.

That’s not the half of it, though. According to the CHC administration office, the amount of $7,901.82 was only an estimate of her son’s actual bill.

“This is only an estimate. The patient can actually end up paying more,” said a CHC employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The mother said she cried over the bill since receiving it.

“I told the hospital staff that we don’t have insurance. And I remember one day calling up the hospital asking how much it would cost to get it done,” the mother said. She was reportedly told by a hospital staff in mid-July 2007 that the procedure would cost around $250.

She said she did not send her son to the hospital at that time because she was told that there was “only one doctor” who does the procedure.

The two waited it out until March, two weeks after her son’s birthday, when the decision to have her son circumcised became final.

“If I had known that it was going to be that much, I wouldn’t have gotten it done over here,” the mother cried.

The mother and son, who are of Chinese descent, said they would have flown first class to Hong Kong and gotten the boy circumcised over there for “a lot less than this!”

“This is outrageous! I cannot afford this! Tell me who can!” she told the Saipan Tribune.

According to the Department of Public Health, all hospital charges have gone up since Dec. 1, 2007.

The department said that they have put out notices in the media letting people know of their new charges.

The mother said she knew nothing about the new charges and demanded a breakdown of her son’s hospital bill.

DPH, who used to charge $250 for every 30 minutes in the Operating Room, explained that the boy was billed at $1,467.05, which is more than a 450-percent increase, for every 15 minutes he was in the Operating Room, along with anesthesia and other medications he received throughout his surgery.

DPH said that after Nov. 30, 2007, the new charges applied. “Everybody who came in after that are billed the new charges,” said an employee in the CHC billing office.

She added that, “There have been a lot of people coming in complaining about their bill. We have many from the Labor and Delivery Room and Emergency.”

According to DPH Chief Financial Officer Esther Muna, “Surgical procedures are charged based on the actual procedure performed plus time spent in the operating room.”

She added that “when simple and less-weighted procedures result in a total charge that exceeds what is reasonable for the weighted procedure and there is no mention of a complication in the patient’s record, DPH will impose a limited amount that would be charged for the operating room. The patient’s case would be reviewed if he meets this criteria.”

The worried mother said that DPH should have let her know of the new charges before doing the procedure on her son.