Lung Center owes patients 122 M in medical care refunds

The Commission on Audit (COA) has ordered the Lung Center of the Philippines (LCP) to track down former patients whom it owes more than P22 million in medical care refunds.

Otherwise, the LCP must return to the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) the amount that remains unclaimed after the lapse of 60 days as prescribed by law.

In its 2018 annual audit report for the state-run specialty hospital, COA also chided hospital officials for failing to conduct a public bidding for the purchase of some 16.43 million worth of industrial and medical gases and liquid oxygen.

State auditors noted that the LCP violated COA Circular No. 76-41 when it resorted to splitting the requested gases, apparently to avoid conducting public bidding.

“Review of the disbursement vouchers covering payments from January to December, 2018 showed that the industrial and medical gases worth P6.439 million were bought from only one/same supplier, in several instances, within the same period,” the audit report released last week revealed.

COA ordered the LCP management to stop the practice of splitting requisitions “to avoid public bidding and circumvent measures on procurement” mandated under Republic Act 9184 or the Government Procurement Law.

‘Bidding overlooked’

Responding to the audit findings, the LCP management said bidding was overlooked “because of voluminous projects”. Officials also pointed out that the materials procured from the supplier were sold at the same price tendered in 2015.

COA noted that the LCP financial records indicated that 128.058 million it received from Philhealth represented PhilHealth Medicare Patiens Refund (PMPR) that piled out from 2002 to 2018.

Of the amount, only 15.442 million or 19 percent was actually refunded to confined PhilHealth members, with the remainder, around 122.616 million, still being held by LCP.

Auditors said the failure of LCP to give patients a refund of paid medical bills is a violation of PhilHealth Circular No. 42 as it deprived patient-members of their benefit under the Medicare law.

COA asked the LCP to “exert all efforts’ to make the necessary refund based on available records or return to PhilHealth the unrefunded amount as required by the state-run medical insurance firm.

At the exit conference, the LCP management assured COA of its compliance to the audit recommendation. Officials said personnel have already assigned to review the PMPR account.