Several private hospitals across the country are considering severing ties with the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation over its failure to settle its outstanding debts amounting to P27 billion, the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines, Inc. warned Monday.

In an interview with the Daily Tribune, PHAPi President Dr. Rene de Grano said they will reach a final decision by January, which is the last month for health facilities to get accreditation from PhilHealth.

"We will have to meet with our members because like before when we planned to disengage, the patients are the ones who will suffer," De Grano said.

"We have to think about what we will do. We have to plan it well. It is not just a simple thing to do because right now, the accreditation period has started up to I think the end of January," he added. "So, it depends because some hospitals are already thinking of disengaging until the whole amount is paid."

Contrary to PhilHealth's claims, De Grano said private hospitals have not received any payment for unpaid claims from the state-run health insurer.

"The truth is we have not received anything. We have not received anything. We're giving them until the end of the year," De Grano told Daily Tribune.

In October, PhilHealth President and CEO Emmanuel R. Ledesma said the agency had settled at least P20 billion of their P27 billion debt to health facilities.

"It's been roughly 30 days since we made the announcement and already 76 percent have been paid," Ledesma told reporters in a press briefing.

"Clearly, we are on track. We will probably be able to complete it ahead of time," he added, referring to the commitment he made before lawmakers that the state-run health insurer would settle "a bulk or majority" of its P27 billion unpaid claims to various hospitals in the country within 90 days.

'Useless'

PhilHealth previously claimed it would utilize its Debit-Credit Payment Method to accelerate the payment of unpaid hospital claims.

De Grano, however, pointed out that the DCPM was "useless" as the health insurer's payment method has yet to be fixed.

"Hopefully, it will work but it should be 100 percent and not 80 to 20 or 60 to 40 percent because it was nonsense," he said.

"It is useless because it is like you are giving us 80 percent of P100 million but without an attachment," he added.

He continued: "If it has no attachment, we cannot disburse these to the hospitals. We cannot disburse these to the doctors. That is why ever since most of the hospitals were not in favor of this DCPM."

Under the paying scheme, PhilHealth will only pay at least 80 percent of the total unpaid claims of the hospitals. The remaining unpaid claims will be settled after the completion of processing requirements.