Audit: Guam Memorial Hospital not doing enough to collect delinquent hospital bills
Uninsured patients at Guam Memorial Hospital owe the hospital tens of millions of dollars, but hospital employees responsible for collections spend only about 1 percent of their time trying to collect, according to the Office of Accountability, which released an audit Monday on the hospital’s billing and collections for “self-pay” accounts.
Collections employees instead spend about 99 percent of their time on “non-collection tasks,” such as answering calls and concerns from patients and visitors, the report states.
The report concludes that GMH does not follow the law, rules or regulations when it comes to billing and collecting from self-pay accounts, and the failure to collect that money may affect the hospital’s ability to provide quality patient care.
The hospital’s credit and collection supervisor and staff should be formally trained and given targets for collections, according to the OPA, which gave four other recommendations as a result of the performance audit.
Read more: https://www.guampdn.com/story/news/2019/02/24/audit-guam-memorial-hospital-employees-uninsured-patients-bills/2975193002/
