Hospital group holds off on threat to deny PhilHealth benefits
Screengrab from www.phap-ph.org
MANILA—The Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines Inc. said Thursday it would not yet carry out its threat to start charging members of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. or PhilHealth the full cost of their hospitalization as PhilHealth has committed to pay the claims of all PHAPI member-hospitals.
Philhealth president Alex Padilla “is making an appeal,” PHAPI president Rustico Jimenez said in an interview. “Let’s see if PhilHealth will make good its promise to settle its debt. The money will be used by hospitals to pay the employees and suppliers.”
PHAPI earlier said it was no longer likely to honor the PhilHealth membership of patients to protest the delayed release of reimbursements.
Under the PhilHealth law, hospitals and doctors deduct a part of their charges to patients subject to reimbursement by PhilHealth. Hospitals and doctors have complained over the years, however, of long delays in the reimbursements of their costs by PhilHealth.
Jimenez said the PhilHealth was again taking several months to pay private hospitals for their services to PhilHealth members and this was bound to affect hospital operations.
Jimenez said the managements of PHAPi members—around 600 hospitals nationwide—were scheduled to hold a special meeting next week before coming up with a decision on whether to push through with their plan to deny PhilHealth members their benefits.
If PHAPi pushes through with its plan, patients will have to shell out PhilHealth’s share of their hospital bills and then apply directly to PhilHealth for reimbursement.
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