“The hospital will have an additional $50,000 a month to use for vendor payments or other needs now that my Management Advisory Team has ended the use of two technology systems that essentially do one job. With this and other work that continues to be done, I believe we have a good start to helping the hospital become more self-sustaining.”
– Governor Eddie Baza Calvo
GMHA ends use of old billing system
The Guam Memorial Hospital Authority will be saving a total of more than $50,000 a month after taking the recommendation of the Governor’s Management Advisory Team.
The team recently discovered that two medical billing systems were running concurrently and recommended GMHA stop using the older system. This is the last month the Legacy system will be in use. That creates a monthly savings of $20,000 beginning in March.
In addition, the final monthly payment of $50,000 for the newer system will be made this month. However, there is a cost for maintenance that will begin in March – about $18,000 a month. That means another monthly savings of approximately $30,000. In other words:
February payments
$20,000 old medical billing system
+ $50,000 new system
$70,000 total
March payments (moving forward)
$0 old medical billing system
$0 new system
+ $18,000 maintenance
$18,000 total
TOTAL MONTHLY SAVINGS: $52,000
The next step is to inform federal partners of this improvement. If the hospital is able to demonstrate meaningful use of the newer system, then we could see a reimbursement of up to $1 million from Medicare and Medicaid.
GMHA, advisory team looks at other areas to save money
Frank Lujan, the governor’s Chief Technology Officer, said he is working with the hospital’s technology team to find more ways to create efficiencies and reduce cost.
“I am confident in the GMHA technology team and the changes that they are helping to bring to the hospital,” Lujan stated. “If we continue on this path I’m sure we’ll see more improvements.”
Wil Castro, the Team member and Bureau of Statistics and Plans director, said they continue to work closely with the GMHA administration, an in particular the new Chief Executive Officer, PeterJohn Camacho.
“We were briefed today that the hospital has over 400 telephone systems on an older system. Mr. Camacho believes that we may save at least $20,000 a month if a better solution is adopted.”