ILOILO City – “In the interest of public health”, seven private hospitals here renewed their accreditation with the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).
December last year they threatened to sever ties with the state health insurer for failing to pay their claims that reached nearly P900 million. They reconsidered such plan in an advisory dated Feb.22.
The hospitals were St. Paul’s Hospital Iloilo (SPHI), Iloilo Doctors’ Hospital (IDH), Iloilo Mission Hospital (IMH), Medicus Medical Center (MCC), Qualimed Hospital Iloilo, The Medical City Hospital Iloilo (TMCI), and the Metro Iloilo Hospital and Medical Center, Inc. (MIHMCI).
In the advisory, the hospitals revealed that PhilHealth made “minimum acceptable payments” although “there are provisions in our position paper that have not yet been met.”
The heads of the seven hospitals and PhilHealth president and chief executive officer Atty. Dante Gierran had a dialogue on Dec. 29 and 31, 2021 and agreed to put on hold the planned disengagement “in the spirit of humane consideration”.
The state health insurer was given until Jan. 31, 2022 to settle the hospitals’ claims.
With the renewal of their accreditation, the seven hospitals will continue honoring and processing all valid claims of PhilHealth members.
Still, they made it clear that “despite our decision to re-engage, we will still pursue our advocacy to push for long-term reforms in PHIC and in our healthcare system.”
This will also not prevent them from giving support to their national organization, the Philippine Hospital Association Philippines (PHAPI), in all its initiatives to bring reforms in the country’s healthcare system, they added.
Private hospitals nationwide are still in a financial crisis due to problems with PhilHealth payment, they noted.
Had the seven hospitals made good their threat not to renew their accreditation with PhilHealth, their patients would have to pay them in full for medical services rendered, and it would be up to the patients to process their clams with the heath state insurer.
“We would like to extend our thanks and gratitude to those who supported us during the last few months, and we appreciate the fact that PhilHealth reached out to us to resolve certain matters and to improve both our services for the benefit of the Filipino people,” said the seven heads of seven hospitals, namely Dr. Alejandro Emmanuel Rivera, president and medical director of IDH; Dr. Elmer Pedregosa, administrator of IMH; Dr. Marcelo Jaen, president/medical director of Medicus Medical Center; Sr. Arcelita Sarnillo, SPC Administrator of SPHI; Dr. Felix Villa, chief executive officer of TMC-Iloilo; Dr. Nathaniel Chan, chief operating officer of Qualimed Hospital Iloilo; and Dr. Danilo Encarnacion, chief executive officer of MIHMCI./PN
