Iloilo City Mayor Jerry P. Treñas said Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) President Dante Gierran assured the city government and different city hospitals that the agency would act on the unpaid claims.
According to Treñas, Gierran attended the virtual meeting yesterday and listened to the hospital directors and promised to immediately find solutions to the problem of unpaid claims amounting to almost P900 million to the different hospitals in the city.
Nine city hospitals and the Uswag Molecular Laboratory have PhilHealth claims amounting to P860,493,324.85.
These hospitals are the following:
- The Medical City Iloilo
- West Visayas State University Medical Center
- Medicus Medical Center
- Metro Iloilo Hospital and Medical Center
- QualiMed Hospital
- Iloilo Doctor’s Hospital
- St. Paul’s Hospital Iloilo
- Western Visayas Medical Center
- Iloilo Mission Hospital
The city mayor earlier warned that the state health insurer’s prolonged inaction may “foreseeably result in the collapse” of the healthcare system in Western Visayas.
“Our hospitals continuously suffer from losses brought about by (PhilHealth’s) indifference,” said Treñas.
In his request to escalate the quarantine status of the city from modified general community quarantine status to modified enhanced community status, Treñas earlier lamented that most private hospitals in the city, despite being overwhelmed, are discouraged from increasing their bed capacities for COVID-19 patients due to late payments from the state health insurer./WDJ