The Philippine Health Insurance Corp said Thursday it had enough funds to pay for COVID-19 claims after a Senate inquiry revealed that some hospitals were driven to debt due to the state insurers failure to reimburse them.
Payments however are sometimes not immediately made due to the processing and review of claims, PhilHealth spokesperson Shirley Domingo said.
“May sapat na pambayad sa claims nila,” she said in an interview on ABS-CBN's Teleradyo.
"Hindi naman lahat ng claims nila pag binigay sa amin bayad agad, kasi may assessment po 'yun," she said.
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Philippine Hospital Association president Dr. Jaime Almora on Wednesday said hospitals were under "severe financial stress" due to the supposed failure of PhilHealth to reimburse them for COVID-19 treatments.
Some unpaid claims date back to March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, with PhilHealth supposedly owing one hospital P1.2 billion.
"If the hospitals are not paid, the doctors component, the professional component is not also paid. So here are doctors working for the COVID patients but they are not being paid," he said.
Domingo said PhilHealth regional offices would reconcile with hospitals their claims for processing of payments, noting that she doubts the state-run agency owes one hospital alone P1.2 billion.
"Kung pwede, ibigay sa amin yang mga data na yan para mag-reconcile po tayo," she said.
PhilHealth, according to Domingo has so far paid P4.88 billion in COVID-19-related claims and P24.5 billion in regular claims for this year.
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