The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) and even government and private hospitals should invest in strengthening their systems against cyberattacks as these occurrences poses a security risk issue.

Sen. Pia Cayetano asks Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) officials to clarify reports it has not paid its debts to a group of private hospitals during the Senate Finance subcommittee hearing on the matter Wednesday, October 11, 2023. (Senate PRIB Photo)

Sen. Pia Cayetano made the call following a Senate finance committee hearing on the status of the unpaid claims filed by private and public hospitals against PhilHealth amounting to P19-billion.

Cayetano said it is evident PhilHealth is committed to pay the P19-billion worth of approved claims but public and private hospitals have yet to determine if the funds have been transferred to their accounts due to the recent cyberattack on the state health insurance agency.

“It was clear to me that PhilHealth is determined to pay for the claims and they have the funds for it,” Cayetano said in an interview after the hearing on Wednesday, October 12.

“But due to the hacking incident, they could not determine if the P19-billion they released have reached the accounts of the private hospitals. They could not assure us that because they can’t check, their system is down,” she pointed out.

“So that should be part of our Sustainable Goals and Futures thinking: cyberattack, we have to be prepared for that. Government hospitals should be prepared for that,” she stressed.

“Because it’s a security risk issue, if in the end, the people cannot go to any hospital because it can’t accept patients out of fear they would not be paid afterwards. That’s a security risk; for Filipinos, health is wealth,” Cayetano reiterated.

That is why, the senator said she is urging these institutions to ramp up their processing systems.

“They should have a plan that if their system is down. If the system is down and you cannot verify whether a payment is approved that’s a problem,” she pointed out.

The representative of the Private Hospitals Association of the Philippines, Inc. (PHAPI), during the hearing, have said they have not yet received any amount, while public hospital representatives said there is still no clarity whether they have received their claims.

During the hearing, PhilHealth Executive Vice President Eli Dino Santos said the have resorted to manual operations due to the cyberattack and thus the delays in the payment of claims.

Last month, PhilHealth was hit by a ransomware attack, prompting the agency to disable its systems to contain the information leak.

But Santos said PhilHealth has now resumed the processing of claims but “gradually” with its corporate website and member portal now accessible by the public.