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BY MAE SINGUAY
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Friday, May 5, 2017
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BACOLOD City – Three ophthalmologists in this city are under investigation for allegedly collecting fees from cataract patients even if the treatments are sponsored by a foundation, Task Force Crusaders (TFC) said.
They charge fees to PhilHealth and, on top of that, they demand that patients pay them 20 percent of the amount charged to the state health insurance, claimed TFC national deputy commander John Chiong.
TFC is a volunteer group formed to serve as a “counterintelligence unit” of the Office of the President and the Office of the Solicitor General, and help the Duterte administration in its campaign against illegal drugs, graft and corruption, and crimes.
Chiong called the doctors’ practice “health insurance fraud.”
The Department of Health (DOH) is handling the investigation.
TFC received complaints from the local medical community through mail, email and interviews, and – via letters – referred the matter to Health secretary Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubial and House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, Chiong said.
Cataract patients seeking help from the Cataract Foundation are referred to the three ophthalmologists, Chiong said.
“The patients are reportedly taken to private hospitals in groups, although one particular private hospital is most preferred and where cataract patients are operated by three doctors of the same surname,” said Chiong.
Chiong refused to disclose the names of the ophthalmologists.
Aside from charging their service and professional fees to PhilHealth, the ophthalmologists would ask patients to pay them the additional fee in cash right after the operation, according to the TFC leader.
Moreover, the Cataract Foundation would also pay government health and social workers to “solicit” patients for them, Chiong said.
“Despite the sanctions PhilHealth imposed many years ago [on] some hospitals, the massive and widespread recruitment of cataract patients [registered] with PhilHealth by a group called Cataract Foundation enjoining government health workers, particularly in Negros Occidental, goes on,” he said.
Chiong said he asked Alvarez to launch a congressional inquiry into the issue.
In its letters to Ubial and Alvarez, the TFC attached documents showing findings of the Southeast-Asia Centre for Resource Studies and Training that such “anomaly” was first detected in 2000./PN
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