MAJURO — The Marshall Islands off-island medical referral program has been suspended in the wake of bills mounting to nearly $1.2 million to Hawaii and U.S. mainland hospitals.
The Marshall Islands government’s third party medical insurer in Honolulu, Hawaii Pacific Medical Referrals, Inc. told Minister of Health Alvin Jacklick that all medical referrals needed to cease immediately because of mounting hospital bills.
Saane Aho, the administrator of the Marshall Islands Social Security Administration that supervises the medical referral program, said in an interview Wednesday that she has informed all medical officials in the Marshall Islands that effective June 4 the off-island referral program was suspended. “MISSA has contacted the Marshall Islands government on the funding issue and is still awaiting a response,” she said. “We hope that this will be resolved shortly.”
She said that while there has been the threat of suspension of the program in the past for lack of payment, this is the first time that it has been suspended.
As of June 4, the Marshall Islands owed nearly $1.2 million to seven Hawaii hospitals and at least one U.S. mainland hospital.
HPMR Administrator Arnold Baptiste said in his June 4 letter that HPMR has saved the Marshall Islands more than $9 million over the past five years—a time in which the Marshall Islands “has been viewed as a responsible payer to all of the hospitals and dentists in Hawaii.”
But with bills mounting now to nearly $1.2 million, “clearly the Marshall Islands has not continued to meet its obligations to the providers in Hawaii over the past several months and as a result, we have very few medical providers willing to accept Marshall Islands referrals,” Baptiste said.
Unless payment can be made by Tuesday, June 18, “we recommend that all medical referrals be ceased immediately,” Baptiste said to Jacklick.
Aho said that “a lot of health providers have notified us that they won’t take patients.”
She said staff from MISSA, which administers a national health tax and payments for the off-island referral program, met with the government’s Cabinet in mid-May to seek action on the need to pay the outstanding debt. “The government agreed it needs to pay off the debt,” she said. “But it’s a problem of identifying a source of funding.”
The largest outstanding debt is to Straub Clinic in Honolulu of $267,889. The Marshall Islands also owes Kapiolani Children’s Hospital $174,295 and St. Francis Hospital $149,361. Debts under $100,000 are owed to other Hawaii hospitals including Queen’s Medical Center, the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific, Kaiser and Castle. San Diego Children’s Hospital is owed $79,124.
