By Emmanuel T. Erediano
Variety News Staff

THE upfront payment policy at the Commonwealth Health Center is doing great in its first week, according to Public Health Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez.
Since it was required beginning on Monday, the partial payment of bills upfront at the commonwealth’s only hospital has made the members of the community realize their responsibility in shouldering their own healthcare cost, Villagomez said.
Hospital bills are no longer coming out late, he said.
Villagomez said he has talked to Public Health’s chief financial officer, Esther L. Muna, who told him that the money collected this week exceeded the amount they usually get in a given week prior to the implementation of the upfront payment policy.
CHC is now requiring upfront payment of the co-payment, and for deductibles and the non-covered services of patients.
The co-payment is the fixed dollar amount the patient has to pay; the deductible or spend down is the amount an insured patient must pay before the benefit of the program goes into effect; while a non-covered service is a service or procedure not covered by a patient’s health insurance.
Payment from non-resident workers will also be due immediately upon check-out and before prescriptions are given.
“So over-all, it’s been working great — we continue to work and explain to the community why we are doing this,” he said, adding that they have also made it clear to the public that CHC is not turning anybody away.
He noted that during the first week of the implementation of the upfront payments, “some people have decided to make payment agreements with us because they just don’t have the means, and that’s fine with us,”
The most important thing, he said, “is that the (patients) are aware of how much they owe us, and most of the people that have been visiting this week have made payments upfront without any form of protest or anger or anything like that.”
It’s just a matter of ensuring that people are aware of the new policy, Villagomez said.
For patients with financial difficulty or who fear they are unable to comply, appointments with financial counselors will be made in advance.