The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) is seriously considering the release of a second tranche of its Interim Reimbursement Mechanism (IRM) or emergency cash advance to help hospitals with needed liquidity so that they can respond better to the increasing Covid-19 patients.
The Agency said it will review each hospital’s utilization of the first IRM tranche, and will ask them to start liquidating the said funds to be eligible for the second tranche.
The second wave of IRM funds will be made available to Covid-19 hospitals specifically those in high concentration areas such as the National Capital Region, Regions III, IV and VII where bed capacity either reached full capacity or in critical levels as coronavirus infections increase due to the easing of quarantine policies. However, overall nationwide total covid 19 admissions was only a little over 50% with most admissions in Level 3 or apex referral hospitals.
For the second wave of IRM, the state agency said that it will provide concerned hospitals with cash advance equivalent to three months’ worth of their claims based on their 2019 claims data.
To date, PhilHealth already released a total of P14.7 billion to 681 hospitals nationwide under its first wave, P7.6 billion or 52% of which went to private institutions. Of this, almost P4.2 Billion or 29% was released to NCR, followed by PRO IV-A (Calabarzon) at P1.2 billion or 8%, and PRO III-A (Central Luzon) at P1.1 billion or 7%.
PhilHealth assured the public that its funds are adequate and available to ensure that all patients, whether of Covid-19 or not, adequate care when needed without experiencing financial difficulty as mandated by the Universal Health Care Law.
