Two prov’l hospital staff charged, suspended
DAGDAG-BAWAS BILLING OF PATIENTS
LINGAYEN– An over-billing racket victimizing indigent patients including point-of-care- enrollees of the provincial government at the Manaoag Community Hospital was discovered by the capitol, and two of its employees were promptly charged.
The two employees, whom the capitol did not name in its press release, are now facing administrative charges for Dishonesty, Grave Misconduct and Abuse of Authority in relation to the violation of No Billing Policy (NBP) for indigent patients in government hospitals.
Gov. Amado T. Espino, Jr. signed the Administrative Case No. 01-2015 last week.
The filing of formal charges stemmed from a handwritten affidavit complaint addressed to Gov. Espino last January 2 by a patient who claimed she was forced to pay P4,000 as hospital bill in hospital bill after a misrepresentation of her case during her confinement period from August 16 to 20, 2014 in the hospital due to severe diarrhea.
In her complaint, the patient said she was billed an amount of P8,000 despite being a Point-of-Care (POC) enrollee of the provincial government but a “compromise” was suggested by one of the employees that the hospital bills would be lowered to at least half or P4,000.
However, it was later found out that only P81 was remitted to the Provincial Treasurer’s Office with acknowledgment receipt No. 9441513 and the same receipt number was issued to the patient bearing the P4,000 payment for hospital bills. The receipt was allegedly issued by the pharmacy aide.
From this incident, Espino immediately ordered the Provincial Legal Office to issue a formal charge against the two employees and were asked to submit a reply affidavit within 10 days upon receipt of the administrative charges leveled against them.
The administrative charge states that “the acts you demonstrated unlawfully charging indigents, manipulating hospital bills without any basis of computation and misappropriating government funds are considered acts constituting Dishonesty, Grave Misconduct and Abuse of Authority.”
“Nalulungkot ako sa lumabas na ganitong problema dahil ang probinsya ay talagang seryoso na matugunan ang programang “No Billing Policy” para matulungan ang ating mga mahihirap na maysakit. Ang provincial government ang umaako sa kanilang mga bayarin sa pamamagitan ng Point-of-Care program ng PhilHealth,” the governor said.
Meanwhile, Provincial Health Officer I Dr. Jeremy Rosario, also in charge of the hospital operations of all 14 government hospitals, said the filing of administrative charges against the two employees should serve as a “warning to all hospital personnel as well as provincial employees that any illegal collection of hospital bills from indigents will not be tolerated.”
The Point-of Care program, which was fully implemented last April 2014 in all government hospitals, is a flagship program of Espino administration that bails out the indigents belonging to C3 and D category from hospital bills, and to provide them quality health services without any single centavo taken out from their pocket.
He revealed that several complainants have began surfacing with similar cases of alleged illegal collection of hospital bills in Manaoag Community Hospital involving the same employees. (PIO)
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