President Rodrigo Duterte called the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (Philhealth) to pay all its debts to the private hospitals.

"(Philhealth Chief) Atty. (Dante) Gierran is repeatedly advised that this debts should be paid because if we fail to pay them, the private hospital cannot continue to treat the COVID patients and we do not have enough public hospitals," said Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque.

"So the president again urged and I'm sure Atty. Gierran will listen to this, we need to pay this as soon as possible,'' added Roque.

Roque said the Philhealth has conducted a lot of meetings to address the situation but he stressed the "need to see results now".

Just last month, Senator Imee Marcos said based on complaints reaching her office Philhealth still has at least P 26 billion unpaid debt to private hospitals alone.

Marcos also "warned that Philhealth's delayed reimbursements to government and private hospitals will weaken their capacity to deal with the mutating COVID-19 virus, if not risk their outright closure."

PhilHealth has introduced the application of a debit-credit payment method (DCPM) to settle accounts payable to health care facilities (HCFs) during the pandemic.

According to Gierran, around 60 percent of claims were paid under DCPM, and around 40 percent of claims are being validated to ensure funds will not be wasted. Robina Asido/DMS