EXPERTS recently urged government to digitalize the operations of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to eliminate corruption at the country’s biggest government-owned and -controlled corporation.
In a recent virtual forum hosted by Stratbase ADR Institute in partnership with Transparency International Philippines and Democracy Watch, anti-corruption advocates discussed the risks and made recommendations to ensure that the massive funds being spent for the people’s health insurance will not fall prey to an organized corruption.
In his talk, Victor Andres Manhit, president of Stratbase ADR Institute, said government must now immediately tap digital technology to fight corruption and promote good governance.
“Now that the value of technology as a productivity tool for communication, collaboration and efficiency has been proven, our government must now harness digital technologies as a weapon against corruption,” he said.
“Fast development of our digital infrastructure now becomes a critical element of our recovery strategy,” Manhit added.
In her presentation, Prof. Heidi Mendoza of the Ateneo School of Government and a former commissioner of the Commission on Audit (COA) gave emphasis on the case of Philhealth specially on its data governance.
When the COA was allowed to view the IT system of PhilHealth, they were given the database of claimants from 2011 to 2015. When they compared the database with the information available from the Philippine Statistics Office, the auditors discovered inaccuracies and discrepancies, such as that a lot of the claimants were already dead, with at least 300 hospitals still claiming reimbursements for patients who are already dead.
President Duterte also ordered government agencies to improve connectivity and Internet services in the country by removing red tape in the approval of telecommunication projects.
Last month, the Department of Information and Communications Technology, Anti-Red Tape Authority, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of Public Works and Highways, Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development, Department of Transportation, Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, Department of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration issued a joint memorandum circular to remove five prerequisites for the construction of passive telecommunications towers and reduce the timeline of permit issuance from 200 days to only 16 days.
Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara said at the close of August that there is an urgent need to digitize PhilHealth database and upgrade its information technology (IT) system to reduce fraud and improve efficiency.
Angara, who chairs the Senate committee on finance, called for a strengthening of the anti-fraud mechanisms in PhilHealth to include a special audit on its funds, following the most recent controversy faced by the state health insurer involving its allegedly overpriced IT system and the controversial P27-billion Interim Reimbursement Mechanism.
“They [PhilHealth] should likewise look into strengthening their manpower complement by hiring more medical reviewers, anti-fraud officers, data scientists, data analytics personnel, and even experts in artificial intelligence and big data,” Angara said.
The senator has been pushing for the digitization of both the government and private sector as part of the national digital transformation program to improve efficiency in the delivery of services and prepare the country for the requirements of a rapidly changing world.