Profit-crazy hospitals claim losses, raise fees

BANKRUPT?: It is good that Health Secretary Francisco Duque rapped private hospitals increasing fees to recoup losses from widely used essential medicines whose prices were cut in half under the government’s drug price regulation scheme starting Sept. 15.

Dr. Rustico Jimenez, president of the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines, said in a forum Tuesday, “We will be forced to increase our services (fees), otherwise, we’ll be bankrupt and close shop.”

Hearing this, Duque countered that he found it incredible that hospitals would lose money to the point of bankruptcy because of foregone profits from the 21 medicines that include over-the-counter drugs for hypertension and high cholesterol.

“If you really stand by your claim, show us your FS (financial statement),” the secretary said, “I am a health financier. I will go over your FS one by one.” There was some applause in the audience.

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PROFIT CENTERS: Duque reminded private hospital administrators that they had other “profit centers” aside from their pharmacies. (Duque was chair of Philippine Health Insurance Corp. before he became health secretary.)

“You get reimbursed by PhilHealth,” he told them. “PhilHealth increased your OR (operating room) fees but we didn’t hear any thank you. You have board and lodging, OR, professional fees and laboratory fees. You have many profit centers.”

If Postscript may add: Hospitals even charge patients and their families exorbitant fees for parking, and let doctors collect fees without BIR-registered receipts.

Duque continued: “Why don’t you give in when it comes to medicines? Why don’t you join our goal in government to make medicines more affordable, so our people would see that you are with them and that you’re not just concerned with your interest?”

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VOLUME GAINS: Duque urged hospitals to mend their ways, “because the public has been a victim of the high prices of medicines for a long time.”

He said: “It’s easy to come up with words and declare that just because we have halved medicine prices, hospitals would immediately lose money. But from what Rustico (Jimenez) is saying, I do not see the clear basis for this.

“At the end of the day, volume price compensation will make up for the losses. We don’t believe they will lose money. Maybe at first there will be a setback, but when the market expands there will be a good effect of all this.” –Federico D. Pascual Jr. (The Philippine Star)