AT LEAST 180 representatives from accredited collecting agents (ACAs) of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) recently gathered in a simple yet productive engagement to actively ask questions and share their views and opinions on policies affecting their partnership with PhilHealth.

At the 2nd Annual Accredited Collecting Agents (ACAs) Forum held at the Crowne Plaza Manila Galleria in Ortigas Center, Quezon City, ACA representatives from bank and non-bank institutions exchanged insights and welcomed updates provided by various PhilHealth offices.

Focusing on the theme, “PhilHealth@21: Building Strong Partnership in Providing Quality Service to Members through Outsourcing of Premium Collections,” the forum was aimed at strengthening PhilHealth’s partnership with its ACAs in a bid to achieve 100 percent outsourced premium collections from the Formal Economy by July this year.

“We have already built our partnership over the years, and now we have to strengthen and go deeper with our partnership through our common goal which is to provide quality service to our members,” PhilHealth Senior Manager for Treasury Department, Evangeline Racelis said.

In his welcome message, Vice President for Member Management Group, Alberto C. Manduriao said that, “in order to provide efficiency in the collection of premium contributions, we partnered with you as our collecting agents to offer our employers with a more convenient approach in settling their premium payments to the National Health Insurance Program (NHIP).” He then introduced the mandatory requirement of Statement of Premium Account (SPA) for the collection of contribution to speed up the process of remittance in a facility. “The use of SPA gives the employers the benefit of making every transaction easier, swifter, and in a more accurate procedure in remitting premium contributions.”

Manduriao also encouraged partner-banks to adopt the use of PhilHealth’s new online remittance facility or the Electronic Premium Remittance System (EPRS), a web-based application designed for member-employers to help ease premium remittance. One important feature that the EPRS offers is the immediate posting of the remitted contribution to the employee’s ledger.

• 
• 
• 
• 

“Our system is ready and we welcome all our partners to have their systems ready too and reconnect with us for much better and easier transactions for our member- employers,” Manduriao said.

In the open forum, PhilHealth’s OIC-Senior Vice President for Fund Management Sector Gregorio C. Rulloda led other PhilHealth officers in addressing the questions raised by the ACAs.

Concerns like computation of penalty on erroneous entries in RF2; turn-around-time for the validation of errors that were changed from five (5) to ten (10) working days; requirements for the SPA and its implementation date; time line of the ACAs for the electronic collection reporting system (ECRS); and other matters pertaining to SPA were raised during the forum. Rulloda also announced that effective July 1, 2016 the “No SPA No Payment Policy” will already be implemented by the ACAs.

• 
• 
• 
• 

Actively participating in the Q&A were representatives of CIS Bayad Center, Banco de Oro, Philippine National Bank, Metro Bank and Trust Company, Asia United Bank, Robinson’s Bank, China Savings Bank, and Bank of the Philippine Islands. All other participants were seen taking down notes and listening intently to the exchange of questions and answers.

“All PhilHealth Offices including PhilHealth Regional Offices (PROs), Local Health Insurance Offices (LHIOs) and Branches would like to thank you for the efficient and quality service you provide to our members,” Rulloda said, adding that, “I know that our partnership will go a long, long way and will continue to prosper.” (Faudia H. Subillaga)