SAN JOSE, Antique – Resorts and hotels in this province may seek accreditation from the Department of Health (DOH) to serve as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) community isolation units (CIUs) for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and locally stranded individuals (LSIs).
According to DOH-Antique team leader Dr. Feman Rene Autajay on July 10, these establishments are being eyed as quarantine centers due to the shortage of isolation facilities in this province.
The agency is now ready to certify interested resorts or hotels. However, none of these establishments has yet to come to the office asking for certification, he added.
Most of the quarantine centers in the 18 towns of Antique are public schools.
The Department of Education has given local government units until July 15 only to utilize their facilities for the quarantine of LSIs and OFWs.
Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PHIC) in Antique chief Junie Sabusap, for his part, said the state health insurance has been providing a community isolation package for the CIUs since April 15.
CIUs are either public or privately-owned non-hospital facilities.
“The PHIC Community Isolation Package is up to a maximum of P22,449,” he added.
The reimbursement claims by the CIUs shall be used to cover the cost of delivering the services so that patients will not be charged out of pocket payment. Resorts or hotels which will be turned CIUs can claim the same.
Aside from the community isolation package, the PHIC also has a testing package ranging from P901 to P3,409 for laboratories certified by the DOH Research Institute for Tropical Medicine.
“Since the testing is being done usually twice, the package could also be claimed twice,” said Sabusap.
If the testing kit, however, is provided by the local government unit or donated by a certain organization, then it will not be included in the reimbursement benefit, he added.
Included in the benefit package are the screening or clinical assessment, specimen collection, specimen handling, conduct of the reverse transcription-polymerase reaction testing, analysis, and reporting of results. (With a report from PNA/PN)
