Poe to PhilHealth: Don’t delay reimbursing hospitals

Hospitals awaiting due reimbursement from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) must not be made to wait any longer as they struggle to protect and save lives amid the pandemic, Senator Grace Poe said on Friday.

“This situation weighs heavily on our medical frontliners, patients, and the most vulnerable among our people,” the chair of the Senate public services committee lamented.

“‘Wag na natin silang pahirapan pa, antagal na nilang nagsasakripisyo at nagtitiis,” she said.

“Our hospitals are already bleeding while our medical frontliners put their lives on the line amid the systemic ills that affect our overall capacity to get back on our feet,” Poe said.

The senator made the call following repeated pleas from the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines Inc. (PHAPI) to the state health insurer to expedite and facilitate the release of their valid reimbursement claims.

PHAPI president Jose de Grano earlier said that the amount of reimbursement applications with PhilHealth has reached P26 billion to P28 billion as of December 2020.

The amount is an “extrapolation” from their 114 hospital-members which submitted their claims, excluding private health institutions outside Metro Manila, De Grano said.

Not only private hospitals, but even government Covid-19 frontline institutions are having a hard time claiming PhilHealth reimbursements due to tedious documentation technicalities, Poe noted.

She reminded PhilHealth authorities that under Administrative Order 23 dated Feb. 21, 2020 of the Office of the President, all national government agencies are directed to hasten the reform of their processes in order to eliminate overregulation.

They shall retain only such steps, procedures and requirements as may be necessary to fulfill their legal mandates and policy objectives. All processes in excess, including those which are redundant or burdensome to the public shall be deemed manifestation of overregulation and shall be removed accordingly.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)