Image from PhilHealth Facebook.
MANILA, Philippines — Around P3 billion worth of claims from healthcare institutions (HCIs) under the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation’s (PhilHealth) Interim Reimbursement Mechanism (IRM) for coronavirus disease patients is now being liquidated, PhilHealth president and chief executive officer Ricardo Morales said Wednesday.
“Sa ngayon ang bumabalik na nili-liquidate, nasa P3 billion na ang naibabalik na claim. Ibig sabihin nili-liquidate na nila, alam na natin kung sino ang pasyenteng ito, ano ang nilapat na gamot,” he said in an interview with ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo.
(Right now, P3 billion worth of claims are being liquidated. It means we now know who is the patient and what is the medicine provided.)
In a Senate hearing on alleged irregularities in PhilHealth on Tuesday, the state health insurer corporate legal counsel Atty. Roberto Labe Jr. said that PhilHealth has so far released a total of P14.971 billion to all 711 HCIs nationwide.
However, he said the IRM, which is one of the subjects of investigation in the Senate hearing, was “not pocketed by anyone as alleged.”
IRM is a cash advance measure of PhilHealth to provide hospitals with an emergency fund to respond to unexpected events like natural disasters and calamities.