The Anti-Red Tape Authority (Arta) is establishing a technical working group (TWG) to assist the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) in streamlining hospital claim processing.
In a news statement issued on Tuesday, Arta Director General Jeremiah Belgica said that a whole-of-government approach is needed to facilitate quicker Covid-19 reimbursement claims.
As such, the planned TWG will be tasked to ease the processes involved. This will include members of the Department of Health, Food and Drug Administration, Health Technology Assessment Council, Department of Information and Communications Technology, and other key agencies.
“Kailangan magtulungan po tayo dahil iisang gobyerno tayo. Matatalo natin ang Covid-19, na patuloy na nagpapahirap sa mga kababayan natin, kung tutulungan natin ang isa’t isa [We need to help each other as we are one government. We can defeat Covid-19, which has been a burden to our countrymen, if we work together],” Belgica said.
Arta noted that PhilHealth has been in hot water amid the delays in paying the Covid-19 reimbursement claims of the public and private hospitals.
In addition, among the issues recently raised were the non-coverage of Remdesivir and Tocilizumab, which are both medicines used for Covid-19 treatment.
“Previous hearings between Arta and PhilHealth also revealed that the state insurer has issues with its Information and Communications Technology, wrong diagnoses and faulty documentation in its Return-to-Hospital applications, and Medical Prepayment Review,” the anti-red tape watchdog added.
In a joint statement last month, several private sector groups pushed for speedy processing of reimbursements to health-care providers.
The organizations expressed worries that the delays in payment pose risk of financial losses, which may lead to hospital closure.
“The delays in effecting reimbursement claims of hospitals have already adversely affected the cash flows of our hospitals, which are already burdened by higher operating costs due to the pandemic and reduced census of regular patients. These impinge on their ability to expand capacity and deliver the needed services to our people,” they said.