SENATORS yesterday warned of a failure in the country’s healthcare system if hospitals do not renew their accreditation with the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) due to unpaid COVID-19 cases claims from last year.
Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara said PhilHealth’s snail-paced reimbursement has been the subject of complaints for some time now.
He called on the state insurer to speed up the payment process or there will be a “failure” in the healthcare system. He said hospitals may be forced to shut down, and this will adversely affect people who are in need of medical services.
An official of the 700-member Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines, Inc. on Monday said that as of August, PhilHealth owes them P20 billion in unpaid claims from last year. Its president, Dr. Jose Rene de Grano, said a number of private hospitals might not renew their accreditation with PhilHealth, and the association will come up with a position paper this month on whether they will cut ties with PhilHealth if the issue remains unresolved.
For its part, PhilHealth said it is facing manpower shortage since their employees also get sick, and some have died, as they are receiving at least 39,000 claims a day. It added that PhilHealth is double checking to make sure there are no fraudulent claims.
Sen. Joel Villanueva said delays in reimbursement will make it harder for hospitals to retain critical manpower.
“This is also a jobs issue. When reimbursement, is slow the flight of talent accelerates,” said Villanueva, chair of the Senate labor committee.
“You can have hospital beds but without medical staff, those beds are reduced to pieces of furniture,” he said.
Sen. Grace Poe said delay in reimbursement “could force hospitals to downsize or worse, halt operations, to the detriment of their workers who will lose jobs.”
“PhilHealth must pick up the slack in settling its mounting obligations to hospitals that compromise our healthcare system. It is unjust for our frontline institutions to continue waiting for years seemingly with no end in sight on when they can be reimbursed,” Poe said.
Sen. Risa Hontiveros urged PhilHealth to pay unpaid hospital claims so that hospitals can use the funds for their continued operations especially at this time of pandemic. — With Jocelyn Montemayor
