Thursday,February 25, 2021
By Uriel Quilinguing, Contributing Editor .
HOSPITALS in Northern Mindanao, who had a share of the controversial P15-billion interim reimbursement mechanism (IRM) of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (Philhealth), have submitted documents on their cash advances, an official of PhilHealth said Tuesday.
Orlando D. Iñigo Jr., regional vice president of Philhealth 10, in an information agency forum at SM Uptown mall here, said P708 million or 96% of the P737 million that were released to 17 hospitals in region have been liquidated.
Northern Mindanao Medical Center (NNMC), Mayor Hilarion A. Ramiro Sr. Medical Center (MHARS-MC), Bukidnon Provincial Hospital (BPH), and Justiniano R. Borja General Hospital (JRBGH) were among the 711 IRM-recipient health care institutions nationwide.
Philhealth’s IRM program handles cash advances for medical facilities during natural disasters and man-made calamities since 2013, including the national health emergency due to the coronavirus pandemic since March last year.
IRM releases, however, were suspended since August 13 last year, pending investigation on alleged corruptions among top Philhealth officials.
Amid last year’s controversy, Iñigo said Philhealth has paid P6.9-million worth of Covid-19 benefit claims in the region: P2 million for those in hospitals, and P4.9 million for those in accredited temporary treatment and monitoring facilities (TTMF), and in community isolation units (CIUs).
Philhealth, he said, pays only on benefit claims from Covid-19 patients who were confined in hospitals and those in TTMF or CIUs for 14 days. Asymptomatic patients for 10 days, certified by infectious disease specialists as recovered, are excluded from Philhealth coverage.
In August last year, the Department of Health prescribed for a 10-day time-bound recovery for confirmed Covid-19 patients, whose symptoms have disappeared or have been symptom-less, may be released from isolation.
Joselito Retuya, a public health doctor and epidemiologist of the local health office here, in Wednesday’s press briefing at city hall, said he is certain all confirmed Covid-19 cases last year from this city were in the CIUs, TTFs or in hospitals for 14 days or more.
Retuya said all Covid-19 patients were sent home only once an RT-PCR test would yield negative results, hence many had been swabbed several times.
He said that it was only in September when they allowed infectious disease specialists in private hospitals to certify time-bound recoveries. As of Tuesday, 403 Covid-19 infected individuals from this city had been certified to be non-infectious.
The region has 60 accredited CIUs with 2,427 total bed capacity: Misamis Oriental (1,449), Bukidnon (415), Lanao del Norte (402), Camiguin (120), and Misamis Occidental (41). Those in cities are included in the provincial bed inventory.
Among the 17 IRM recipient hospitals, the top five who received last year’s benefit payments from Philhealth were: NMMC (P415M), MHARS-MC (P223M), Polymedic Medical Plaza (P186M), BPH (P182M), and JRBGH (P168M). These included their cash advances.
Claims from the region’s accredited reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction testing centers are still on process for payments. These include the NMMC’s Genexpert Molecular Laboratory, NMMC Satellite Covid-19 Laboratory, Maria Reyna Xavier University Hospital Molecular Laboratory, and the Lanao del Norte Covid-19 Testing Laboratory.