PhilHealth owes City Hall more than P250M in COVID test fees

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

The Philippine Health Insurance Corp (PhilHealth) has another bone to pick in Iloilo City, not only with the private hospitals but with the city government itself, as it owes the latter over P258 million in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) testing fees.

Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas told Daily Guardian in an interview Wednesday that the P54 million in PhilHealth claims he referred to a Facebook post in his page on Tuesday, Dec. 29 was the only amount paid by the PhilHealth for the COVID-19 tests.

These were tests conducted by the Uswag Iloilo City Molecular Laboratory at Brgy. San Pedro in Molo district.

The amount includes P22 million in payments, which comprise P8 million in claims paid and another P14 million in cash transfers.

The total amount was out of P313 million worth of tests which are supposed to be covered by PhilHealth from 91,884 non-paying patients who were either symptomatic COVID-19 cases or their close contacts.

This meant that PhilHealth had only paid the Iloilo City Government 17.42 percent of what it actually owed.

“Symptomatic and close contacts are tested free of charge, then they would qualify [for PhilHealth claims]. The [P22 million] is also included in that,” Treñas said in a phone interview.

The mayor said that he “doesn’t know” when PhilHealth would pay the remaining P258 million.

“We’ve been asking [PhilHealth], but they haven’t told us when they will be paying, but we continue to test because we couldn’t just ignore the needs of our people. We will continue to follow these up until they pay us fully,” he said.

The unpaid COVID testing claims were also part of the city government’s lawsuit filed by the mayor back in September this year, along with the unpaid claims of hospitals in the city for both COVID and non-COVID patients.

As of Dec 14, the Uswag Molecular Laboratory has tested 99,473 patients since its opening in November 2020, with whole testing costs amounting to P339.103 million.