CHCC aims to step up its game with specialized care

The Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. is looking into incorporating specialized care in its system, which could eliminate the need for off-island medical referrals since special treatment can already be done locally, according to CEO Esther Muña.

“As you know that CHCC was created by Public Law 16-51. In essence it combined the hospital, public health, behavioral health, the Community Guidance Center, and all its related programs [on] Saipan, Tinian and Rota. This was to allow us in management more flexibility and authority to independently meet the acute and long-term health care needs,” Muña said.

“What we want to do with this facility now is provide tertiary or specialized care. It is about time we start looking and have access to tertiary care or specialized care,” she added.

The hospital currently provides only primary care services.

Providing tertiary care would mean stepping up its service to another level, Muña said.

“We want to do that and we are trying to look for ways to do that. We’re discussing it. We were at a point where our level of care was really bad. [The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] wanted to yank it right then and there. We wanted to pursue high quality of care…that is our goal. Where do we go from here? We go and start looking into specialties, that is what,” she said.

Muña said they needed a business plan—now in the process of being finalized—in order to look into upcoming regulations to see changes for the next five years.

Muna said they are at a flat level right now. They went from being surveyed by CMS and having numerous citations to having improved many aspects of their operation.

The hospital’s condition of participation in Medicare has been extended to October this year.

“You either go up, stay flat, or go down and we want to be able to go up. We went from down and now we’re up but we want to try to continue to go up,” she said.

“Guam has some tertiary services [but] we don’t want to keep referring [patients] anywhere else. We want to go beyond that because we can’t continue to do that,” she added.

The business plan is widely expected to contain how CHCC will address most, if not all, questions regarding its financial and management plans. This will help identify revenue streams that will possibly look into the future of specialized care in the CNMI.