Making Medicare payments for V.I. residents equal to those on the U.S. mainland will be a priority for the V.I. Hospitals and Health Facilities Corporation, which held its quarterly board meeting Monday at Schneider Regional Medical Center on St. Thomas.
Addressing a lack of parity with the mainland in Medicare support payments, the board approved a resolution authorizing and directing the chairman of the V.I. hospital board to take action on behalf of the territory’s hospitals and medical centers.
“We don’t get the same fair share of what hospitals on the mainland are getting,” outgoing chairman Carmelo Rivera said. “This is the appropriate venue to make a decision today to pursue aggressively the Medicare system and make sure we have done everything possible that we are getting everything we should be getting.”
The board oversees the two hospital districts (St. Thomas–St. John and St. Croix) and the two hospitals, Schneider Regional Medical Center and Gov. Juan F. Luis Hospital on St. Croix, so that the the territory’s medical facilities can realize efficiencies, as well as to complement one another.
The resolution, while authorizing action from board’s chair, also consolidates the point of contact for Medicare appeals from the territory, creating a consistent approach to corresponding with the federal authorities. At the same time, the two district boards will be able to share access to the information.
This would ensure that applications for either adjustments to the base rate or for cost-of-living adjustments would be coordinated through the chairman in an effort to be consistent and timely territory-wide, Rivera explained, though the actual applicant will be the medical center.
Rivera lauded a recent reprogramming of $2 million in funds to pay a Luis Hospital debt to the V.I. Water and Power Authority. He thanked Government House and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for support of the hospital in paying its critical bills and assisting with funding for the new V.I. Cardiac Center, as well as dialysis equipment. The funding came through the Office of Management and Budget.
Board member and OMB Director Debra Gottlieb said that part of the $2 million in reprogrammed funds was contingent on the V.I. government’s ability to borrow, but that her office was taking a look at cash flow.
“I can’t pay them the whole $2 million right now,” Gottlieb said. “But I am trying to get them something.”
The board also elected new executive officers. Lynn Millin Maduro will serve as the new chairperson. Maduro is also V.I. Commissioner of Property and Procurement.
Valdemar Hill Jr., who is president of the Luis Hospital Board, will serve as Vice Chair. Maria T. Hodge will serve as secretary, and Cornell Williams will serve as treasurer.
The role of chair alternates between the two districts; and Maduro and the new executive team will serve for a period of two years.
Maduro said that her top priorities would be to create a territorial policy on hospital procurement, join national association of hospital boards to arrange for continuing education, and to create a V.I. emergency management policy with the hospitals.
Maduro has set a goal of refining the role of the territorial board as the nexus between the district boards, the hospitals and their CEOs, on a basis of finding synergies and eliminating competing interests.
The board also heard reports from both hospital districts, both painting a dismal financial picture. The two hospitals’ chief financial officers, Schneider’s Eugene Welsh and Rosalie Javois of Luis, were apprehensive about their respective hospitals’ ability to serve the public in the face of a 7-percent budget cut request from Government House. The pair urged the board to take action to have the hospitals made exempt from such cuts in the future.
