President Rodrigo Roa Duterte
(KING RODRIGUEZ / PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO / FILE PHOTO)
Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque made the statement as private hospitals lament unpaid claims supposedly amounting to P6 billion.
“President Duterte directed [PhilHealth] to expedite the payment of valid claims of hospitals today, April 8, 2021,” he wrote in his statement on Thursday.
In response, PhilHealth approved the application of a Debit-Credit Payment Method (DCPM) to facilitate the settlement of accounts payable to Health Care Facilities (HCFs) during the state of public health emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Roque said HCFs eligible for DCPM must be located in regions identified by the government pandemic task forces, such as the National Capital Region, Batangas, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Pampanga, and Rizal.
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(JANSEN ROMERO / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea issued the reminder to PhilHealth president Dante Gierran to avoid delayed reimbursements given the crucial role of hospitals in the pandemic response, according to Presidential spokesman Harry Roque.
Gierran received Medialdea’s message loud and clear and has promised to ensure prompt payment to the hospitals.
“Nag-meeting pa po kami, tatlong oras kasama po si Executive Secretary at si Senator Bong Go at isa sa mga pinag-meeting-an natin ay iyon ngang sa PhilHealth at nangako naman po si Director Gierran na bibilisan niya iyong proseso (We had a meeting for three hours with Executive Secretary and Senator Bong Go and one of the agenda of the meeting was PhilHealth. Director Gierran pledged to hasten the process),” Roque said during a televised press briefing Monday April 5.
By JULIA MARI ORNEDO, GMA News
Published April 5, 2021 3:31pm The Department of Health (DOH) said on Monday that the government had enough funds to augment the health workforce amid a new surge in COVID-19 cases but lamented that only a few health workers were “heeding the call.” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire added that the DOH had given hospitals enough funds to hire health workers directly. Over 7,000 have been hired since the DOH launched its emergency hiring program for health workers at the start of the pandemic last year. “Unfortunately, the challenge still would be the uptake. We have the money to hire but not many health workers are heeding the call maybe because of fear or some are really deployed already in other industries,” Vergeire said in a Palace briefing.