Don’t blame us for scheme that defrauded PhilHealth–PSA

While it acknowledged it had refused to share information about deceased members of Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) due to the data privacy law, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Thursday said it should not be blamed for the scheme that defrauded PhilHealth.

Ronaldo Taghap, officer in charge of the PSA’s Civil Registration Service, said PhilHealth could have requested a data-sharing program to verify information about patient beneficiaries.

“Please don’t blame us,” he said.

Taghap pointed out that other agencies which require data in bulk, like the Social Security System, Government Service Insurance System, Philippine Veterans Affairs Office and Armed Forces of the Philippines, had memorandums of agreement with the PSA to cross-reference certain pieces of information.

PhilHealth has neither executed nor requested any such agreement, Taghap said.

The PSA official was reacting to a statement made on Wednesday by PhilHealth spokesperson Shirley Domingo, who said the state health insurance company asked the PSA late last year for data on patients supposedly used by WellMed, a Quezon City-based dialysis center, to make fake claims. —PATRICIA DENISE M. CHIU