PhilHealth: Not all of P16B worth of unpaid claims are delayed
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) owes P16 billion in hospital claims but not all are delayed claims, the spokesperson of the state health insurer said Friday.
“The number changes every day. We receive around 39,000 claims and we also pay several millions of claims a day. The number changes. But right now, it would be around P16 billion,” PhilHealth spokesperson Shirley Domingo told CNN Philippines’ The Source.
“It’s what is in our offices now and not all of that are delayed claims because there are some still within the 60 days and some outside of the 60 days,” she added.
She added that “maybe around less than 50 percent would be still beyond the 60 days.”
“We are paying through DCPM (Debit-Credit Payment Method) to make it faster. We are hoping to release this money kaagad through DCPM. We already released a certain amount, around P9 billion for our first wave of DCPM and we fixed some glitches of the first release and therefore we are releasing the second wave very soon,” Domingo said.
READ: PhilHealth’s DCPM includes claims received until Aug. 9
Under the DPCM, only 60 percent of the claims will initially be paid to hospitals while 40 percent would be paid upon completion of processing requirements.
According to Domingo, PhilHealth has already paid P158 billion in claims since January 2020.
Dr. Jose Rene de Grano, president of the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines, Inc., earlier said that PhilHealth still owes hospitals up to P20 billion worth of claims as of August. He said that some hospitals are planning to disengage with PhilHealth because of the delayed claims.
Domingo said PhilHealth president Dante Gierran is coordinating with de Grano “to iron out issues” and prevent the disengagement of private hospitals from PhilHealth. Domingo also said that some hospitals have told PhilHealth that they will not cut ties with the agency.
She assured that PhilHealth has enough funds to pay the remaining claims.
