Private and government hospitals used their savings and borrowed money from banks in order to sustain their operations after the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) failed to pay the claims for COVID-19 cases since March 2020, the Philippine Hospital Association said on Wednesday.
PHA president Dr. Jaime Almora disclosed the plight of hospitals during a hearing conducted by the Senate Committee on Economic Affairs on the status of industries hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They have to dig into their savings and they have to borrow from the bank. Some hospitals who have called already informed me that they have borrowed from the bank for their operating budget,” he said.
Almora said in the Senate hearing that the huge amount of unpaid claims to the hospitals for COVID-19 cases are already “causing severe financial distress” to hospitals.
He said reimbursements for other disease were being paid by the state insurer, but he pointed out that hospitals are mainly admitting COVID-19 cases.
The PHA president said PhilHealth has yet togive an explanation on this policy.
“That is the biggest problem because we are not given a reason why.
This is now causing severe financial distress to private hospitals as well as the government hospitals,” he said.
Almora cited one hospital as an example where PhilHealth has yet to pay a total of P1.2 billion.
“Remember, that if the hospitals are not paid, the doctors, the professional component, is not also paid. So here are doctors working for the COVID patients, but they are not being paid,” Almora stressed.
Reacting to Almora’s report, Senator Francis Pangilinan said this is “unacceptable.”
“At this point parang ‘Wala kaming pakialam sa inyo, magtiis kayo.’ [‘Yan] ang dating sa atin dito dahil you are the frontliners and yet this is how you are treated by government in terms of government support, in terms of funding. This is totally unacceptable,” Pangilinan said.
(At this point, it seems that they are telling the hospitals that ‘We don’t care and just deal with it.’ That is how it looks like. You are the frontliners and yet, this is how you are treated by government in terms of government support, in terms of funding. This is totally unacceptable.)
“We must look into this and get results. March 2020 pa. It’s already May 2021. We hope and we intend, kakalampagin natin ang (we should call the attention of) PhilHealth,” he added.
Almora said the PHA has sent a letter to PhilHealth president and CEO Dante Gierran last March 28 and they had a meeting on April 5.
He said Gierran was “sympathetic and accommodating,” promising them that PhilHealth will pay for the reimbursements.
Three days after the meeting, Almora said Philhealth issued its circular 2020-004 which created a debit-credit payment mechanism that gives a partial payment of 60% of the in-process claims for hospitals in the NCR bubble.
However, he said private hospitals were made to apply for the mechanism.
“The hospitals were surprised why they have to apply and sign an undertaking… So they did not apply,” he said in mixed Filipino.
“Somehow, there are some hospitals in the NCR who applied and who received some amount which they consider small,” Almora added.
Senate economic affairs committee chairperson Imee Marcos said the panel can call PhilHealth in the next committee hearings to explain their side on the issue.