During the budget hearing conducted by the Senate Committee on Fiscal Affairs on Tuesday, Sasamoto said the advance of Medicare payments was actually a loan, which the hospital has to pay back. “We have to do that in order to cover our current expenses for Covid-19 and everything else.”
CHCC Chief Executive Officer Esther Muna said they had to advance funds from Medicaid/Medicare to retain hospital workers.
“We need to make sure that we have staffing available so that we can be able to handle situations like what is happening [now]. We need our staff to…be available should there be a surge [in Covid-19 cases].”
Muna said their action was recommended by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services itself.
“Through a public health emergency notice from HHS, it recommended to hospitals in the U.S. and territories to advance our revenues because they expect that each hospital will be in deficit, especially because of the fact that people are delaying their care and we won’t be able to generate revenue,” Muna said.
CHCC provided the Senate committee a summary of funding related to Covid-19, including from the CARES Act, that CHCC has received.
CHCC said it received over $4.8 million from the CARES Act, but its Covid-19-related expenses have reached over $6 million.
