President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has extended the deadline for hospitals to file claims with the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation to 120 days, Palace press officer Claire Castro said on Wednesday.
The move followed a Commission on Audit call for the Department of Health to address more than P1 billion in unpaid PhilHealth claims affecting hospital finances and health-care worker compensation.
“Regarding the claims that are not paid immediately by PhilHealth, according to the DOH, hospitals are supposed to submit their claims by a certain date, within a 60-day period,” Castro said at a briefing.
“However, most hospitals fail to provide their documents on time for their claims,” she added.
“Because of this, the President also ordered an extension of the period for hospitals to submit their claims,” Castro said.
“It was extended up to 120 days—this is called ‘Claim’s Flexibility,’” she said.
“With this, the DOH and PhilHealth are able to fulfill their obligations,” Castro added.
According to COA’s 2024 audit report on the DOH, 12 DOH-retained hospitals had difficulty collecting and verifying denied and return-to-hospital claims from PhilHealth.
The unpaid claims totaled P786.6 million and P298.7 million, mainly due to inconsistent compliance with PhilHealth processing rules.
COA cited weak monitoring, poor coordination, missing documents from manual filing, and non-compliance with policies such as the Single Period Confinement Policy as contributing factors.