Sablan files bill to establish Qualified Medical Travel Assistance Program

Christina E. Sablan

Rep. Christina E. Sablan (D-Saipan) has introduced a bill that seeks to reform and restructure the Medical Referral Services by establishing the CNMI Qualified Medical Travel Assistance Program within the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp.

The purposes of Sablan’s House Bill 22-77 are also to provide transition of off-island medical referral services administration and operations to CHCC and streamline assistance for eligible patients with a demonstrated need to access tertiary care.

The bill will allow CHCC to integrate patient care and respond quickly to changes in the capacity of on-island healthcare providers to treat residents of the CNMI, while operating within budgetary appropriations for the program.

Sablan, who chairs the House of Representatives Health and Welfare Committee, has expressed appreciation to her colleagues both from the Democratic Party and the Republican Party who provided her feedback and supported this bill.

Sablan said the bill seeks to provide the necessary legal authority, protections for CHCC, and basic parameters for a program that is dear to the community and enables access to healthcare when services are unavailable on the islands.

She said the bill was drafted in coordination with CHCC, and in consideration of comments from the Office of the Attorney General, the Medical Referral Services program, the Department of Finance, the Special Assistant for Administration, the mayors and health center directors of Rota and Tinian, and concerned citizens.

The House Health and Welfare Committee held four public hearings on the bill on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota in May, and reviewed written and oral testimonies as well as relevant reports and data submitted by the agencies.

Sablan stated in the bill that the Medical Referral Program, as it is presently constituted outside of the existing healthcare system, cannot efficiently perform its duties to assist residents of the CNMI in accessing healthcare services that are unavailable in their home island municipalities or within the Commonwealth.

Historically and currently, the program has struggled not just to contain costs, Sablan said, but also to minimize lengths of stay at referral healthcare facilities, to ensure inter-facility medical communication and effective case management, and to improve the coordination of care for referral patients.

She said the program has been in operation in the absence of any enabling legislation to establish legal authority and parameters.

For many years, the lawmaker pointed out, the CNMI government has failed to budget adequately for the program.

Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez (Ind-Saipan) has referred the bill to Health and Welfare Committee, which Sablan chairs.

Sablan said they will soon be scheduling another public meeting for further review and mark-up.

The bill’s other sponsors are Villagomez, floor leader Ralph N. Yumul (R-Saipan), and Reps. Leila Staffler (D-Saipan), Donald M. Manglona (Ind-Rota), Sheila J. Babauta (D-Saipan), Edwin K. Propst (D-Saipan), Denita Yangetmai (D-Saipan), Vicente Camacho (D-Saipan), Richard T. Lizama (D-Saipan), Celina R. Babauta (D-Saipan), Angel A. Demapan (R-Saipan), John Paul Sablan (R-Saipan), Patrick H. San Nicolas (R-Tinian), and Roy Ada (R-Saipan).