PhilHealth memo interpretations shouldn’t hurt hospitals, says group

MANILA – Orders from state insurer PhilHealth shouldn’t be interpreted in such a way that it would be detrimental to hospitals, the Philippine Hospital Association said Wednesday.

Group president Dr. Jaime Almora said memoranda and orders from the state insurer have caused an “information disconnect” among its regional offices and confusion among hospitals, leading to problems with reimbursement of claims for COVID-19 cases.

On Sunday, the doctor said PhilHealth owed private and public medical facilities some P20 billion in COVID-19 claims.

• PhilHealth owes hospitals some P20-B in COVID-19 claims

“If there is a problem in the interpretation of their circulars, they should interpret it in a way that it will not deny the hospitals their right to gainful activity, to be reimbursed of their money.”

“Their interpretation should not result in a loss to the hospitals because we need those money to improve the services of the hospital,” Almora said on ANC's "Rundown."

Almora said PhilHealth also promised to deploy more evaluators in order to quickly reimburse hospitals.

“Their main problem is also manpower, the evaluators in different regions. So they plan to get some of their evaluators from areas that have lesser cases and bringing them to the more problematic areas. And also get human resource from the DOH (Department of Health), and to mobilize their other personnel,” he said.

--ANC, 11 August 2021