MANILA – There was nothing irregular with the payments made by the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to a Davao City-based hospital to cover expenses for the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said the P326 million received by the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) under the state insurer’s Interim Reimbursement Mechanism (IRM) has basis.
“We find nothing irregular in the PhilHealth IRM allocation of SPMC,” Roque said in a statement. “Historically, SPMC has had the biggest amount of claims due to its regular provision of healthcare services to patients all over Mindanao.”
Roque added that, based on the data from the Department of Health, the SPMC is the biggest government hospital in the country with 1,500 beds and almost 3,600 personnel. The hospital’s admissions stood at 76,586 last year while there were 586,278 outpatients.
“SPMC also has the highest PhilHealth income, breaking the billion mark. Its average income for 2018-2019 is P1.2 billion and IRM is based on the monthly average or the track record of reimbursement for 2018-19,” Roque said.
During the Senate inquiry on the alleged PhilHealth anomalies on Tuesday, it was revealed that SPMC received P326 million, which is the biggest amount of compensation among the funds received by hospitals in the country.
SPMC is located in Davao City, the hometown of President Rodrigo Duterte. According to PhilHealth, IRM releases were based on the historical claims of hospitals, and undergo a process of application, evaluation, validation and recommendation at the level of the PhilHealth regional offices, and approval at its head office in Manila./PN
