Zubiri exposes alleged 'rebate' scheme in PhilHealth reimbursements

Senate Majority Leader on Tuesday claimed that there was some kind of a "rebate" scheme involving the Philippine Health Insurance Corp (PhilHealth) where corrupt officials allegedly make money before releasing reimbursement claims of health care facilities.

During a Senate hearing, Zubiri said  Pacific Eye Institute, headed by a certain Dr. David Gosiengfiao had multi-million claims with PhilHealth in 2014 for cataract removal surgeries and other eye operations.

"As told to me by my insider, there was a board meeting held by PhilHealth in 2016 wherein Dr. Gosiengfiao supposedly admitted to the board that he was asked to pay P7.3 million to a certain PhilHealth officer for the release of his claims amounting to P73 million," the senator said.

Zubiri pointed out that the P7.3 million was a "rebate or kickback" of 10 percent.

He motioned that the Committee had already subpoenaed documents related to the said Board meeting four years ago.

Recalling that Gosiengfiao already gave testimonies to the previous Senate hearings in 2015 or 2016, Zubiri asked the Senate Secretary to retrieve records and invite the former to the next hearing if possible.

The motions of Zubiri had been approved by the Committee of the Whole.

Zubiri earlier revealed that P10 million has been released to an 18-bed infirmary in Davao del Sur during the first semester alone of 2015.

"How can an 18-bed hospital have so much patients? I was told by my insider that these are what they call the non-existing patients—not even ghosts but not existing at all," he said during the hearing. -MDM, GMA News