While private company St. Michael’s Medical Response supported it, the Department of Public Safety’s Emergency Management Services opposed Senate Bill 17-76 which will create a commission to regulate private and public ambulance services in the CNMI.
Sen. Jovita M. Taimanao, Ind.-Rota and author of the bill, said it aims to promote an effective system of emergency and non-emergency medical services that include ambulance, rescue vehicles, equipment, personnel and facilities. This will “ensure that all emergency and non-emergency patients receive prompt and adequate medical care throughout the range of emergency conditions encountered.”
The commission, whose budget will be appropriated by the Legislature, will be composed of five members selected by the governor.
Aside from regulating ambulances and issues certification for emergency personnel, it will also charge “reasonable fees” for certification. These fees will go to the commission’s revolving fund.
EMS Director Tom Manglona said they are already doing what the proposed commission will do.
Variety learned that the fire division is not Medicaid or Medicare certified. This means that EMS, which is under the division, cannot bill Medicaid and Medicare directly.
Moreover, Variety was told, the current EMS certification courses are based on “obsolete” 1990 curriculum.
But Manglona said the local EMS is in compliance. Their response time, he added, is six minutes “and we’re pretty good in that regard.”
St. Michael’s Medical Response president, Joseph C. Santos, said S.B. 17-76 will create an “impartial and non-biased” commission that can provide certification to ambulance service providers like his company.
Santos said it is very common throughout the U.S. to have such regulating body.
Guam, he added, also has a commission that certifies ambulance service providers.
Right now, Santos said, “I am not aware of any CNMI law that requires me to obtain a license certification or license from the [Department of Public Safety]. They claim they do. But I don’t go through such process at all.”
Santos said EMS involves healthcare providers.
“We need [a commission] just as much as we need the medical license board. These professions need to be scrutinized properly. And by having this commission you provide the same kind of scrutiny and evaluation of credentials to ensure that they really know what they are doing,” he said.
