Philippine Health Insurance Corp. has promised to continue its focus on operations while cooperating with the different probing committees on the ongoing investigation of the alleged fraudulent scheme of a dialysis clinic in Quezon City and the “mafia” inside the corporation.
PhilHealth president and chief executive Ricardo Morales told reporters the government-owned and -controlled corporation had been doing a balancing act as PhilHealth was still in hot water after different cases were filed against its executives and the coming implementation of the Universal Health Care Act.
“Right now, PhilHealth is facing investigation from five agencies. In the meantime, we have to run the corporation. We are trying to do this at the same time,” Morales said.
“We are not the enemies and we are cooperating with the investigation.”
In other developments:
The 21 PhilHealth officers involved in alleged fraudulent schemes have released a statement after the National Bureau of Investigation asked the Department of Justice to prosecute the members of the Accreditation on Sub-Committee from PhilHealth Regional Office-National Capital Region.
In a press briefing, Lolita Tuliao, an official of the accreditation on the sub-committee, rejected the accusation from the NBI as they were never given the proper due process in probing their part in WellMed Dialysis.
In the statement, Tuliao and the other officials denied the allegations and slammed the NBI after failing to inform the involved parties in releasing the names in the media before the charges were handed to them.
“We were not given the opportunity to explain, hence we were clearly denied due process,” the statement said.
Former PhilHealth Independent Director Anthony Leachon on Friday described as “selective” and “baseless” the cases filed against him and 10 others for allegedly re-accrediting an erring Cebu hospital.
Leachon said PhilHealth chairman and Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, and SSS president Emmanuel Dooc also signed the PhilHealth decision that overturned a 2015 Court of Appeals ruling suspending Perpetual Succour Hospital Inc. for illegally extending the confinement period of a patient.
Morales said PhilHealth had been running its own internal probe of its employees to eradicate corruption.
PhilHealth senior vice president Jojo del Rosario remained open to welcome the filed cases against the corporation but asked for the proper authority to prosecute the people involved in the right way.
Del Rosario also said PhilHealth filed an administrative case against the WellMed Dialysis clinic that was fined P3.3 million and another P1.9 million for the second case with WellMed paying all the claims they received from the corporation.
PhilHealth has been dealing with 23,000 possible fraudulent claims with help from the authorities to file administrative cases and withdrawal of accreditation from the health clinics and hospitals.
In the wake of the WellMed Dialysis fraud claims, last Wednesday Duque vowed to speed up the reform of the IT system inside PhilHealth to organize documents inside the corporation and to fight fraud. Macon Ramos-Araneta and Charles Dantes
Ex-Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque has sued 11 former and active PhilHealth executives through the Office of the Ombudsman for graft, usurpation of judicial functions and grave misconducts.
Roque accused former PhilHealth acting chief Roy Ferrer of reversing the suspension of Cebu-based hospital Perpetual Succour Hospital.