A senator is pushing to re-investigate the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation’s (PhilHealth) overdue payment on claims by hospitals to treat patients with COVID-19.
Sen. Sonny Angara filed a resolution aimed at reviewing the following:
- Why does PhilHealth always take so long to pay?
- How can this be accelerated?
- How can Congress and other government agencies help?
Angara stressed that with the advent of the Delta variant, hospitals’ service should not be delayed.
“With the arrival of the Delta variant, there should be no disruption at all for our hospitals, especially when a surge in cases is highly possible. All efforts should be exerted by PhilHealth to settle the claims of these hospitals, particularly those that have been delayed for some time already,” he said.
The resolution referred to a recent complaint by the Philippine Hospital Association (PHA), an organization of nearly 2,000 private and government hospitals, that they have many members who are already in financial trouble due to unpaid claims to PhilHealth.
At a Senate hearing earlier, Dr. Jaime Almora, president of the PHA, that between P50 million to P700 million is not being paid by PhilHealth to each hospital, so they already have it in debt, or the savings are already exhausted for use in their operations.
Senate to probe PhilHealth’s late payments to hospitals
The Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines (PHAP) said the same thing in April.
According to PHAP president Jose de Grano, PhilHealth owed them P28 billion from March to December 2020 alone.
According to Angara, the gradual payment will not work because it causes some hospitals to reduce their operations or reduce their personnel’s bed capacity and working hours.
Meanwhile, some COVID-19 referral hospitals in Manila have already felt the increase in cases of the disease in recent weeks.
According to their medical chief Alfonso Nunez, in East Avenue Medical Center in Quezon City, bed utilization is now at 80 percent.
Meanwhile, Philippine General Hospital spokesperson Dr. Jonas Del Rosario that the surge in hospital admissions at their facility is “consistent”.
Visit our Facebook page for more news updates.