GCG approves PhilHealth restructuring
MANILA, Philippines — The Governance Commission for Government-Owned or Controlled Corporations (GCG) on Wednesday said that it approved the reorganization of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) to address long-standing issues.
The GCG said that PhilHealth’s responsibilities under the Universal Health Care Act paved the way for the restructuring of the organization to ensure that Filipinos receive efficient healthcare services.
READ: PhilHealth to settle P8.8B denied claims of hospitals from 2018-2024
The GCG said PhilHealth submitted its initial application for organizational restructure in November 2022 where the GCG approved a partial restructuring later that year.
“The reform aims to address several long-standing issues including outdated workforce, fragmented data and strategy execution, and issues related to benefit claims,” the GCG said in a statement.
The GCG noted that the restructuring features a revamped organizational structure with 503 units and a total of 7,149 positions that aims to improve service delivery and agency’s capability to fulfill its mandate under the Universal Health Care Act.
Aside from this, the GCG said that the centralization of administrative functions such as finance, legal, information technology, procurement, human resources, and general administration services is “seen to address the inconsistencies and conflicts in the current operational framework of PhilHealth, maintain responsiveness to the public, and enhance healthcare delivery.”
The strengthening of the internal audit office of PhilHealth is ordered to cater to the complexity of operations. In addition, the GCG shared that Benefit Payment Appeals Office, one of the newly created units in PhilHealth, is designed to process appeals on benefit claim payments “to improve the disposition of appeals cases and incentivize healthcare.”
The GCG, under the RA No. 10149 or the GOCC Governance Act of 2011, has the authority to assess whether a GOCC must be reorganized, retained, abolished, merged, or privatized through consultation with the department the GOCC is attached to.
READ: PhilHealth’s ‘broken system’ needs fixing, says DOH chief
PhilHealth’s response
Department of Health Secretary and PhilHealth Board of Directors Chairperson Teodoro Herbosa said that the PhilHealth staff and the public have been waiting for the reorganization.
“[T]he Department of Health (DOH) has been working with the Governance Commission for GOCCs (GCG) to ensure that the organizational structure of PhilHealth is suitable for the implementation of Universal Health Care,” Herbosa said in a separate statement. /cb
