The Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines (PHAPI) revealed that PhilHealth owes PHP 4 billion to a group of private hospitals, as reported by PHAPI President Dr. Jose Rene Grano.
Dr. Grano emphasized that these debts accrued during the pandemic.
Furthermore, with the rising costs of hospital operations due to increased supply prices, private hospitals are significantly affected.
He stressed the importance of PhilHealth promptly settling these claims, noting that unlike public hospitals, private hospitals do not receive subsidies.
“All costs of medicines and supplies, as well as health worker salaries, have increased. These factors affect hospitals, especially private ones because we do not receive any subsidy from the government. That’s why hospitalization costs in private hospitals are also rising,” according to Dr. Jose Rene de Grano, President, PHAPI.
Due to PhilHealth’s high debts, some hospitals are considering not accepting patients or beneficiaries of PhilHealth.
However, they are now prioritizing the welfare of patients who rely heavily on the state insurer.
“Because that has a big effect on the patients, because that around 90% of the hospital bill, that’s around 90% of the hospital bill of the patient. That’s also big, especially for those with small earnings, so the patients are also pitiful,” said De Grano.
It has also been emphasized that PhilHealth should prioritize settling these debts rather than returning nearly 90 billion pesos in unused subsidy funds to the National Treasury, as announced last month.
“We continue our reconciliation with PhilHealth, addressing outstanding debts possibly from 2019 up to 2-4 years ago,” he added.
“If they just pay their debt to us, which amounts to P90 billion, instead of returning it to the treasury, they [PhilHealth] should settle their debt first,” he said.
But according to PHAPI, PhilHealth has promised to settle their outstanding debts with them.
