Docs getting P6,000 a month to lose PhilHealth funds
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—More than 90 doctors and 200 nonmedical personnel of Tarlac Provincial Hospital (TPH) risk losing the source of funds that is helping them make ends meet and serve the hospital, which can only give them as low as P6,000 in monthly wage.
The TPH doctors and nonmedical employees had been augmenting their salaries by dividing among themselves 30 percent of reimbursements from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) which they call pooled professional fees (PPF), but which Gov. Victor Yap calls “bonus.”
Yap, citing local autonomy, wants to reduce that amount from 30 to just 2 percent.
He said the move would increase the financial capacity of TPH to help more poor patients.
“The cost of operations has been greater than the income [of the hospital]. Subsidy [from the provincial government] went to bonuses,” he said.
He credited himself with increasing TPH income from P84 million 13 years ago to P600 million last year.
“Around P120 million was not declared as revenue because it was given as a bonus,” he said, referring to PPF.
“They want to hold me hostage. Don’t I have the right [as chief executive] to know where my subsidy went?” he added.
Yap put on hold P12.5 million in PPF from March 16 to June 30, according to Dr. Antonita de Pano, spokesperson of TPH Doctors Association.
TPH health workers have joined ranks to keep their 30 percent share to also avoid setting a precedent for public hospitals, like TPH, that were devolved from the Department of Health to local government units.
De Pano said Yap should retain the 30 percent share of TPH doctors and nonmedical personnel because PhilHealth Circular No. 35 authorized it.
Yap said the National Health Insurance Act of 2013 (Republic Act No. 10606) was silent on whether the PPF is an incentive that should be “automatically given.”
Dr. De Pano said the implementing rules and regulations of the law was clear when it stated that “all payments for professional services rendered by salaried public providers shall be retained by the health facility in which services are rendered and be pooled and distributed among health personnel.” Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon
