Acting Public Health Secretary John Tagabuel said two officials from CMS, a federal agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, met with him yesterday.
“We met and we were told that there are some works to be done at CHC,” Tagabuel said in a phone interview and noted that the two-member team will return to Saipan after a month to assess CHC’s progress.
“There were discrepancies found within the hospital. We will talk again after a month,” he added.
CMS administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state governments to run Medicaid, among other related programs.
Medicare is a social insurance program of the U.S. government for people aged 65 and above who meet certain special criteria.
Medicaid, on the other hand, is the U.S. government’s subsidized health insurance program for low-income persons and their families.
Because the CNMI remains economically challenged and its minimum wage is much lower than the federal wage rate of $7.25 an hour, a significant percentage of its population rely on Medicaid for their healthcare needs.
In 2001, the General Accountability Office, the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, reported that the nation spent more than $6.3 million in Medicaid for the CNMI; $3.727 for American Samoa; and $3.727 million for Guam.
Medicaid and Medicare, however, can only be offered in health facilities certified by CMS.
CHC has not been certified yet pending its positive actions on discrepancies that the two-man team from CMS noted.
Tagabuel refused to specifically cite the problems at the hospital, saying these will “be addressed internally.”
He said a CMS team comes to Saipan once every two or three years for the review. “We’re still working on that certification,” he added.
During his meeting with the CMS team, Tagabuel said inquiries were made about the $22 million federally funded dialysis center which remains unopened.
He said CMS requested documents relevant to the project.
