Health Authority trying to recover millions
- Friday, June 15th, 2012 at 9:46 AM
John Cline * File photo
The BVI Health Services Authority (BVIHSA) has begun work to attempt to collect more than $11m owed to the Authority by people in the BVI who received medical treatment or assistance to take their sick ones abroad to be treated.
Chairman of the Health Authority Board John Cline told a news conference on Thursday that the BVIHSA stands as a security guard or watch dog for healthcare in the territory to provide the best and most affordable service to all.
Cline said the authority is driven to do whatever is necessary to deal with healthcare from where it is now to where the authority thinks it needs to be, so that they can minimize the travel of the population overseas to find good healthcare which will impact their economics.
“Healthcare is one of the things that puts financial burden on any country and if we don’t collect we can’t pay out, so we are working diligently to improve our collections, improve our billing, to improve all aspects of healthcare so that when we win, our doctors win, our nurses win, the staff wins every body wins, the public wins, so we are looking for win-win situations,” Cline said.
Director of Hospital Services, Cedorene Patricia Malone-Smith, said the money owed could go as far back as in 2005.
“I must say that before we became the BVIHSA, collections were not something that was necessarily a front burner issue. Patients came to the hospital, it was a government entity and they expected care and care was delivered with no thought as to where the money was coming from. Once we became an authority, we had to become fiscally responsible. We have started working on our fiscal responsibility inside. Our job now is to get the public on board with us and get them into the same place we are because in the minds of some of the public we have been running a government institution and therefore they should not pay,” she said.
She added: “So with that in mind we have to build up our staff in terms of what collections are suppose to look like and the processing of collections because it has not been demanded of us in the past, so if it’s not demanded, you don’t do it, but once it is the mandate, we are now mandated to make sure that we do it properly, and that is why we have asked for some outside help to get us where we want to go.”
She said the Authority continues to provide the healthcare necessary for the Virgin Islands despite the millions of dollars that are out, but she noted they will provide more services if they get the money.
Meanwhile, Cline said most of the people in the BVI who owe the Health Services Authority can pay but they refused to do so.
“A lot of the money that we are owed are owed because we go the extra mile trying to help those critical patients who come to us to find care where we can provide it, so when we have to ship them off to the US mainland or to Puerto Rico, the cost for that is very high. The families always do not have the monies up front to do that, so we will go out on their behalf and sign an agreement to these institutions and then they will back sign the agreement with us to pay. Unfortunately, we are required to pay the institution but our people don’t find it necessary to come back and pay us, and some of these people can pay and they should pay. We are going to make the phone calls and encourage them to pay; somehow we will come up with a way to collect this money, but we can’t continue, we just cannot continue.
“If someone goes to Baptist Hospital in a critical condition and we call, first thing they are going to say we want a deposit of $250,000 and they want a cheque. We can’t continue along those paths and be viable and financially sound; it’s actually financially irresponsible on our part to continue to do it, but in a critical situation, with people crying they want their love one taken care off, sometimes we have to but we cannot continue to do it,” Cline said.
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17 Comments
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Why do we think that everything have to be free? How is the hospital going to operate if there is no revenue? We have to pay for the services that we receive from the hospital. The hospital is in a disgusting state, because there is not enough money to make necessary improvements. Some of the disrepair is also due to a lack of leadership, and the period when the hospital was not accepting government insurance.. The hospital needs proper management, and we the people have to get past this mentality that everything has to be free. That will not work.
there are admisnistrators that come to your bedside and ask how you are going to pay the fee at the hospital. I ahd some one dear to me and they ask the individual how they going to pay. while the perosn on their sick bed. Very disheartening. The hospital are now trying to get individuals hwo bring their love ones to Hospital for further treatments sign on behalf of the individual is getting the treatment. So you and the the individual that is getting treatment is stuck with the bill. Not the person only who is getting medical treatment.
Your dear loved one was lucky that he/she was admitted before asserting how the bill was going to be paid. Try going to a hospital in the USA. You have to go the financial office to make arrangement to pay your bill. That is not done from no hospital bed, it is done before. The people here want everything for free that cannot and will not work.
Pay or go to Jail.
Fathers are being imprisoned for owing less.
Publish a list of these dead beats. We have a right to know.
If you owe and refuse to pay, it seems to me that is no different than thieving. The penalty for that is jail, or garnered wages. No beneficial change will come by not pursuing this.
If the government chooses to write off the debt overseas, then in the future it will find itself turned away when it tries to ship people to overseas facilities. Or having to pay cash up front
If it chooses to write off the debt off its own books (assuming it makes good on overseas debts), then eventually there will be no monies to pay for overseas treatment, unless the payments have cash up front. A lot of it.
Everybody loses out unless we accept financial responsibility for our actions. This is also why a system of universal health care and health insurance needs to be implemented, in my view. Otherwise, there is the real danger that access to health care becomes a privilege for the wealthy. The rest of us gets to bring out or dead, as was the practice in the middle ages.
those politicians gonna write-off several of those bills…watch and see
And if they take legal action you will curse even louder so hush. This is the mentality that has been developed over time. The Govt will have no choice but to write off most of these costs as the time and money to put Lawyers on them wont worth it.
Same thing with student loans. There are people here whose children were loaned hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to college, and they will not complete their income form because they don’t People here don’t even want to contribute for their children’s education. The sad thing is that many don’t even need government’s money, because they can afford to pay. Are these people forced to disclose their income? No, and instead of the money be denied they are allowed to sign a bond and get the money. It will be interested to know how much of this money is recovered by government.. This mis-management or non-management is one of the reason why government is in the tank and strapped for cash. People you have to pay your way or the ship is going to sink. Get rid of this freebie mentality.
What about the money the Authority owes people who pay for services and had to wait for hours, and still aint get attention and had to go to the other place, brought the receipts to the authority and still aint get no refund or credit
The Authority needs money to give you money. Everyone needs to pay.
Everyone DOES need to pay. The problem as I see it though is we do not have a system to demand payment for services received or not, in the public or private sector. If a man doesn’t pay you and you go to court that can take two years and even if you win a judgement it can take years again to get that money because that person can drag that out forever, then there are the legal fees which come out of any money paid in first, even if the court awards legal fees. The other thing is governments here never want to touch all these kinds of financial consumer issues and pass laws to protect us or themselves because the government is the biggest and worst debtor. Perhaps some of these folks could try to lead by example. One government comes in, creates debt, leaves office and leaves people hanging for payment. The new government comes in and doesn’t have to honor those debts if they don’t wish. If government wants to be paid, perhaps they can start circulating some money in the economy by first paying off or trying atleast to show some goodwill by making some payments against all their outstanding debts. If people who can pay, according to Mr. Cline, are not paying that says something about how business is done here generally. Just saying.
Blah blah blah.
When the hospital can present a bill on time then we can have a conversation. Until then it’s the hospital’s fault most of those bills are unpaid
You coud don’t like as much as you want it doesn’t change the fact that most of those people and\or their insurance providers have not been billed in a timely manner if at all.
If your are one who did so made the choice to go to another system.n It like this you refuse to take the service that you have paid for that is my way of seeing it
BVIHSA you want to regain your money,but whats about those who finish contract with you and going on nearly 6 months and they cannot get their gratuity?
I want to believe that this BVIHSA will have to deal with lots of letters from lawyers soon,for their outstanding debts to both firms
and pass workers that still waiting for their gratuity and payments.All you business is on the street.
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