PhilHealth: Lower COVID package rate out next week

MANILA, Philippines — Amid allegations of overpriced coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) test kits, the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) will come out with a lower benefit package rate for patients afflicted with the deadly infection.

PhilHealth president Ricardo Morales said the government-run corporation is now in the process or reviewing its existing benefit package for COVID-19 patients and would likely publish the new and lower test rates next week.  

“These rates are under constant review and we will publish new rates as soon as review is completed,” Morales said yesterday. 

Under the existing package of benefits, PhilHealth will pay private hospitals P8,150 if all services for the testing are procured and provided by the testing laboratory and P5,450 if the test kits used were donated.

PhilHealth will pay P2,710 to government hospitals for test kits donated to the testing laboratory.

“These rates were formulated in the early part of the pandemic based on the statement of accounts collected from different hospitals,” Morales said as he explained that PhilHealth could not dictate the cost of the test kits.

So far, PhilHealth has paid P141 million for the tests done by the Philippine Red Cross. Hospitals are given 120 days after discharge to file claims for COVID patients.

Legislators are claiming that PhilHealth is paying for overpriced COVID-19 testing kits, which may cause an “unnecessary depletion” of the agency’s resources.  

Malacañang said it would look into the overpricing reports as presidential spokesman Harry Roque Jr. promised to refer the issue to the Office of the Special Assistant to the President headed by Undersecretary Jesus Melchor Quitain. 

“I will forward the new accusations to Secretary Quitain because it is (him) who is conducting an investigation into the PhilHealth issues, which resulted in the dismissal of some members of the Board of Directors of PhilHealth,” Roque said.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon described the alleged overpricing as a “total waste and abuse of taxpayers’ money.”

Stimulus

At the House of Representatives, the ways and means committee chaired by Albay Rep. Joey Salceda and economic affairs committee chaired by AAMBIS-OWA party-list Rep. Sharon Garin have proposed the allocation of P20 billion for the government’s mass testing program nationwide.

Salceda and Garin cited the importance of mass testing – which the Department of Health (DOH) has clarified to refer to expanded and targeted testing – before completely opening up the nation’s economy after months of community quarantine measures.

“We have to ensure that the disease will not spread in workplaces by allocating P20 billion per year for the testing,” explained Salceda, author of the proposed Philippine Economic Stimulus Act (PESA).

Garin said the mass testing will be crucial for economy recovery as it will establish consumer confidence in businesses.

“Businesses like restaurants, retail and similar industries don’t have clients because people are afraid to go out. So we have to build consumer confidence and mass testing can drastically help with that,” she pointed out.

The panel included the provision on mass testing in the PESA bill amid mounting criticisms on the alleged insufficiency and inefficiency of the tests being conducted by the DOH. Since the implementation of the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon last March 16, the DOH has tested over 207,000 individuals as of last Monday. Edu Punay, Christina Mendez, Cecille Suerte Felipe