The new rules, however, increased the daily subsistence allowance of patients from $20 per day to $30, depending on the destination.
According to the new rules published in the Commonwealth Register, the office dealing with medical referrals has been renamed Medical Referral Services or MRS.
MRS now grants automatic escort only to minor patients.
Escorts for adult patients will be approved based on the doctor’s recommendation and the patient’s physical condition regardless of age.
Escorts will also be allowed if a patient is not able to effectively communicate in English.
The new rules prohibit a family escort for a patient or intended escort who earned $70,000 or more within the last 12 months prior to the medical referral.
Room and board of medically referred patients will be their responsibility if not covered by a third-party payer.
Eligibility criteria for indigent patients were also revised in consideration of the CNMI’s economic situation.
This is to prevent MRS from further “authorizing non-collectable promissory notes that are costlier to maintain.”
Last year, health officials disclosed to lawmakers that the cash-strapped CNMI government was spending $7,500 a month to transport patients from Manila’s airport to the hospital.
Government records showed that the U.S. and the CNMI governments spent $6.4 million on medical referral-related expenses from fiscal years 2007 to 2009.
The figure did not include professional fees paid to the hospitals in the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii and elsewhere, where local patients were medically referred.
The figure was for a total of 2,188 patients — 565 in FY 2007; 716 in FY 2008; and 907 in FY 2009.
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