CEBU CITY—The National Bureau of Investigation Central Visayas (NBI 7) has started investigating complaints of alleged anomalies at the local Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) office.
Lawyer Renan Oliva, the newly installed NBI 7 director, said NBI 7 was part of the task force that the Department of Justice (DOJ) created to look into irregular claims in the state insurance company.
Oliva said the NBI 7 was investigating alleged unauthorized claims from PhilHealth’s interim reimbursement mechanism and claims related to coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
“We coordinated with the Commission on Audit (COA) for checking of the claims. Because of the volume of documents that we have to gather and evaluate, we divided our investigation into two. We are investigating first claims related to COVID,” said Oliva.
Oliva clarified that even before the DOJ ordered a nationwide investigation, the regional PhilHealth based in Cebu City has already sought assistance from the NBI 7 due to alleged questionable claims.
“The local PhilHealth is one of the requesting parties to our investigation,” said Oliva.
Oliva said they already met with internal auditors of PhilHealth and COA as part of the investigation.
The NBI 7 has already forwarded documents to their district offices in Bohol and Dumaguete since there are hospitals there with PhilHealth claims, said Oliva.