28 Mar 2014

American Samoa hospital fees cut

1:43 pm on 28 March 2014

The LBJ Medical Centre in American Samoa is moving forward with plans to reduce its 20 US dollar fee to see a doctor to 15 dollars.

The hospital's chief executive officer, Joseph Davis-Fleming, has told a cabinet meeting that the five-dollar reduction is effective from April 1st and covers all out-patient clinics.

Mr Davis-Fleming says the reduction will also apply to other hospital service such as the emergency room and lab tests, which have different fee structures and costs.

He says the cut was made possible after the Fono increased the hospital's budget.

"Not that we are rolling in any money but after doing so a preliminary analysis we determined that we could offset or replace the fees that are being paid by individual patients out of pocket"

Joseph Davis-Fleming says the reduction is one of the mandates by the governor for the new board to address.