The amendments to the Commonwealth Health Center’s schedule of fees took effect on May 21 or when the regulations were published in the Commonwealth Register.
It will remain in effect for 120 days on an emergency basis before the permanent regulations are adopted.
According to the new regulations that Public Health Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez submitted, the Current Procedural Terminology, or CPT, Codes determine the structure of CHC’s fees.
The CPT Codes — the numbers that doctors write on insurance forms to describe the services they perform — have been changed, making it mandatory for CHC to adjust its fee structure.
“CHC physicians do not necessarily perform services listed in the CPT Manual. Therefore, when physicians find services and procedures are necessary for the medical care of the patient, CHC must price them and include them in the scheduled of fees,” the new CHC regulations state.
Built in 1986, CHC is a 76-inpatient bed hospital recently expanded to include a hemodialysis center.
As the only hospital in the CNMI, CHC provides healthcare for the islands’ entire estimated population of less than 60,000.
The new regulations allow CHC to charge a minimum of $5 per patient for the use of its facilities.
This rate varies depending on the scope of medical work performed on a patient.
For instance, CHC will charge a patient between $1,325 and $2,563 for obstetrical care — the healthcare provided to women and their children during pregnancy — excluding the physician’s fee which ranges between $803 and $1,803.03.
The comprehensive hearing test, which costs $48.75 in terms of physician’s fee, will now include an additional charge of $108 for using CHC’s facilities.
The use of an electrocardiograph, or ECG, monitoring, will be billed between $110 and $223.
Inhaler use for the first hour will cost a patient $90 and each additional hour will cost $70.
The complete CHC schedule of fees will be posted at the civic center and the local government offices on Saipan, Tinian and Rota.
