Private hospitals to PhilHealth: Pay P27 billion by yearend

MANILA, Philippines — A group of private hospitals urged the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to settle its P27-billion debt to health facilities by December.

“We are asking PhilHealth to make good on their promise to pay the (more than) P20-billion arrears to the hospitals before the end of the year,” Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines Inc. (PHAPI) president Dr. Jose Rene de Grano said before the weekend.

He added, “They are still in the process of fixing their system. If they are really paying, mostly these are current accounts.”

De Grano noted that PhilHealth gave its word that “this week they are releasing around P2.5 billion more or less… Hopefully, that is true.”

He said that if by January the hospitals haven’t received payment yet, they will be forced to make an announcement concerning this inaction of PhilHealth.

“We will give them time to do it but still if nothing happens, we have to tell everybody that we have not received anything, and that what they are saying is false,” he said.

PHAPI is firm in saying that it has not received any amount from PhilHealth even if the state insurer earlier claimed that it already disbursed 76 percent of its outstanding debt to hospitals.    

PhilHealth says it has settled a total of P20.651 billion of its outstanding debt to hospitals amounting to P27 billion.  

Rey Baleña, acting vice president of the PhilHealth Corporate Affairs Group, earlier said that their records show that indeed, payments to PHAPI hospitals have already been made.

He said it is possible that there could be a delay in the posting of payment in their individual accounts.The official added that the delay could be due to the hacking incident that affected PhilHealth files last September.