Lacson questions PhilHealth’s release of IRM funds before dissemination of guidelines

Senator Panfilo Lacson on Tuesday grilled PhilHealth officials for releasing billions of funds through the Interim Reimbursement Mechanism when the documents that should serve as its backbone were allegedly not even out yet.

During a Senate hearing, Lacson pointed out that the Board resolution for IRM was released March 31 or 11 days after the memorandum circular was issued amid the pandemic.

The Board resolution should have preceded the memorandum circular, he stressed.

The senator presented a document showing that even prior to the adoption of the Board resolution, over P703 million IRM fund releases have already been advanced to 24 hospitals for the COVID-19 health emergency.

PhilHealth Board member Susan Mercado said the Board was "just informed and asked to endorse" the resolution providing for the P27-billion IRM during a meeting.

Prior to the release of standard operating procedures for IRM releases were disseminated on April 22, the funds that were shelled out to 279 hospitals already amounted to P9.29 billion, Lacson further stated.

"Anong guidelines meron ang nag-i-implement, ang RVPs, kung wala pang issued implementing guidelines or SOP? Kasi SOP naroon parameters and guidelines, how to make a list, all the guidelines are there. How can they release without the SOP? That’s my point, What justified release of P703M and P9.299B?" he asked.

Philhealth chief Ricardo Morales, on the other hand, said the intention was to prudently act and get ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said that in January, Philhealth officials were in a "state of panic" because they knew that COVID-19 was coming, hence they fast-tracked the release of funds through IRM.

The 90-day historical claim of hospitals was used as the basis for the IRM allocation, Morales said, as he pointed out that the amounts were not arbitrarily decided.

"Some expedience had to be adopted... Nagmamadali kami maka-release ng pera. But we made sure all releases were covered by a contract and that we would be able to account for all funds that were available," he said.

Mercado and another Board member Alejandro Cabading, however, denied that the Board discussed COVID-19 as early as January.

The first two confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Philippines were detected on January 30 and February 1, respectively. The patients were a Chinese couple from China's Wuhan City—the epicenter of the outbreak. — RSJ, GMA News