The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) pledged on Wednesday to pay its unpaid hospital claims amounting to PHP 27 billion within 90 days.
The PhilHealth made the commitment during the House deliberations on the Department of Health's (DOH) PHP 199 billion proposed budget for 2024.
"I'm happy to state to honorable congressmen that we will completely, hopefully, or very high percentage po within 90 days [mabayaran] 'yung P27 billion," PhilHealth President and CEO Emmanuel Ledesma Jr. said.
"Based on our discussions with hospital officials yesterday, I am confident that within 90 days from today, majority, if not all, will be paid off," he added.
The state health insurer's outstanding balance in process that has been unpaid for 60 days amounts to PHP13 billion.
Ladesma disclosed that PhilHealth had a meeting to discuss the best approach to running the payment last Tuesday.
"We are preparing to use the debit credit payment mechanism (DCPM) formula. We will make sure that the reconciliation (of data) will be accelerated," he said.
The commitment was made after Agri Party-list Rep. Wilbert Lee questioned why PhilHealth has billions of unpaid hospital claims when it has PHP 466 billion in investible funds and PHP 68.4 billion in net income.
Lee also said that many hospitals do not want to accept indigent patients because they are unable to pay their doctors and employees due to PhilHealth's huge debt.
"Many hospitals do not want to accept patients once PhilHealth comes into the picture. Many doctors and employees can’t also be paid by hospitals because of the huge debt that PhilHealth owes them," the Agri Party-list Rep. said.
The Commission on Audit's (COA) 2022 report showed that PhilHealth rejected thousands of claims amounting to billions of pesos.
PhilHealth, however, noted that the majority of the hospitals' denied claims were the result of their failure to provide the necessary requirements.
