Private hospital group bucks PhilHealth transfer to OP

MANILA, Philippines — Members of the medical community have expressed opposition to the proposed transfer of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to the Office of the President (OP).

In an interview with “The Chiefs” on Cignal TV’s One News Tuesday night, public health advocate Dr. Minguita Padilla said, “First of all, we’re asking the reason why they even thought about this. This is a very unscientific way of doing things. Usually you say, there is a problem and then let’s try to find a solution. Now you are presenting us a solution without a problem.”

Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines Inc. president Dr. Jose Rene de Grano said they have not been consulted at all with regard to this proposed transfer of PhilHealth to OP.

“What we wanted on our side is the amendment of the law that covers PhilHealth and specifically, the quasijudicial powers of PhilHealth wherein they act as the accuser, prosecutor, judge and executioner. It is quite unfair to us, especially to the health facilities,” De Grano told The Chiefs.

Padilla said, “A lot of groups have studied the proposal and they’ve said it will not improve efficiency of the agency even if PhilHealth is transferred to OP.”

“The logical answer would be to solve the problems of PhilHealth, but the first question is why, why are they doing this – efficiency? It doesn’t make sense,” she added.

At the same time, Padilla said, “How can you now investigate an agency that is under the most powerful person in the country? There might be lack of transparency, and you are talking about health insurance. Health insurance requires the utmost transparency because you are paying for people’s health.”

She stressed, “We are contributors to PhilHealth. This is public money.”

Padilla also said, “We need to reform a lot of things inside PhilHealth like the IT (information technology) system.”

She said some hospitals are not being paid on time, while some doctors are being charged with double billing.

“Though they did not really double bill, but the system, portal and PhilHealth do not speak the same language. The legal system in PhilHealth has to be overhauled as well,” added Padilla, who was former head executive staff in PhilHealth.

PhilHealth had earlier submitted a proposal to the Department of Health (DOH) for its transfer to the OP. The DOH created a technical working group composed of officials from the two agencies to evaluate the proposal.

Meanwhile, a total of 814 new COVID-19 Omicron subvariants were detected in the country, the DOH reported on July 12.

The latest COVID-19 Biosurveillance Report of the DOH showed 785 cases were classified as Omicron XBB subvariant. These are local cases found in all regions except Eastern Visayas.

Result of samples sequenced by the University of the Philippines-Philippine Genome Center on June 30 to July 7 also noted there were 20 more cases of BA.2.3.20.

These were detected in Ilocos region, Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, Mimaropa, Bicol, Zamboanga peninsula, Davao region, Soccsksargen and Cordillera Administrative Region.

The recently detected BA.2.75 case was detected in Central Visayas while the lone XBC case was detected in Soccsksargen. seven cases of “other sublineages” detected.