ILOILO CITY – Mayor Jerry Treñas may take legal action against the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) in Region 6 over the unpaid claims of nine hospitals and the city government-run molecular laboratory.
He instructed the City Legal Office to study the filing of criminal and administrative complaints against PhilHealth-6.
Treñas said complaints may be filed with the Office of Ombudsman and the Anti-Red Tape Council.
The non-payment of claims is preventing hospitals from adding more beds for moderate and severe cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), he lamented.
Yesterday, local chief executives of Western Visayas had a virtual meeting with the Department of Health and PhilHealth regarding the unpaid claims. According to Treñas, they failed to come up with solutions.
For Iloilo City hospitals alone and the Uswag Molecular Laboratory, PhilHealth has yet to pay P932.322 million in claims.
“We can no longer keep track of how many times we have sent communications and conducted meetings with PhilHealth representatives,” said Treñas.
On Aug. 24, he once again wrote the secretaries of Health, Local Government, National Task Force Against COVID-19, and the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases about the “extremely delayed settlement of charges”.
The hospitals and their unpaid PhilHealth claims were the following:
* The Medical City Iloilo – P88.052 million
* West Visayas State University Medical Center – P49. 998 million
* Metro Iloilo Hospital and Medical Center – P190.756 million
* QualiMed Hospital – P30.393 million
* Iloilo Doctor’s Hospital – P58.114 million
* St. Paul’s Hospital Iloilo – P95.205 million
* Western Visayas Medical Center – P112.714 million
* Iloilo Mission Hospital – P99.645 million
The Medicus Medical Center also has unpaid claims with PhilHealth (for updating yet) while the city government-run Uswag Molecular Laboratory has P207.441 million./PN
