Reimburse hospitals now, senators press PhilHealth

MANILA, Philippines — What’s the point of universal health care when hospitals start boycotting the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) for failing to reimburse insurance claims promptly for services rendered to COVID-19 patients, senators fumed on Tuesday.

The lawmakers took PhilHealth to task for “inexcusable” delays in paying the insurance claims of private hospitals, some of which had warned they were cutting ties with the government health system because of unpaid dues that had ballooned to P20 billion as of August.

Sen. Grace Poe said PhilHealth should draw up an “aggressive catch-up plan for due reimbursement of claims.”

“It is unjust for our front-line institutions to continue waiting for years seemingly with no end in sight on when they can be reimbursed,” the chair of the Senate public services committee said.

Poe said the delay in payment could force hospitals to downsize or worse, halt operations, to the detriment of their workers who would lose jobs, and the Filipino people “who cannot anymore take a heavy beating from the pandemic.”

P70-B subsidies

Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara noted that every year, “millions of Filipinos get automatic deductions from their salary, regardless of how big or little pay they receive.”

“In addition, the national government put in P70 billion in additional subsidies to the PhilHealth fund in the past year,” the Senate finance chair said.

Angara suggested that the Anti-Red Tape Authority to take a look at PhilHealth to determine the cause of delay in the payment of hospitals’ health insurance claims.

“This development is inexcusable considering we’re in a public health emergency,” he said.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros urged private hospitals to remain committed to ensuring access to affordable health care.

She said cutting off ties with PhilHealth over its alleged failure to pay reimbursement claims would deprive less-fortunate Filipinos from access to the benefits offered by the state health insurer.

Sen. Joel Villanueva, on the other hand, expressed alarm that PhilHealth’s delays in reimbursing private hospitals for treating its members will make it harder for hospitals to retain critical manpower.

Villanueva warned that by failing to solve the long festering problem of slow reimbursement, PhilHealth is “unwittingly aiding headhunters in recruiting nurses to work abroad.”

95M contributors

Sen. Imee Marcos said the Universal Health Care Act and PhilHealth itself “will lose their purpose if hospitals make good on their threat to boycott the agency and no longer renew their accreditation next year.”

“At this time when people have neither jobs nor money, who will pay for their medical expenses if hospitals are no longer registered with PhilHealth?” the chair of the Senate economic affairs committee said.

“There are almost 95 million direct and indirect contributors to PhilHealth who are anxious about losing their benefits,” she said.

On Monday, the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines Inc. said a number of private hospitals in Metro Manila and in the provinces had “already signified that they will no longer renew their accreditation with PhilHealth.”

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque on Tuesday said the government would always have money for PhilHealth as the Universal Health Care law provides for multiple sources of funds for its operations, including proceeds from sin taxes and earnings from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.

But Dante Gierran, president of PhilHealth, should keep on paying private hospitals especially during this time of a pandemic, otherwise, the country would not have enough facilities to take care of its people, Roque said at a press briefing.

He pointed out that 70 percent of medical health care in the country is provided by private hospitals.

“Universal health care will not succeed without the cooperation of private hospitals. Private hospitals provide more services than government hospitals,” he said.