Gokil, 909 Hospital COVID-19 Bill Arrears Reached IDR 2.56 Trillion

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - The Financial and Development Supervisory Agency (BPKP) has completed all verification requests from the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) of hospital claims for reimbursement bills for the treatment of COVID-19 patients in 2020.

BPKP's Director of Social and Disaster Management Supervision, Michael Rolandi C Brata said the review of the hospital claims arrears had been completed in four stages, respectively, with reports dated April 12, May 21, May 28, and June 22, 2021.

"BPKP has completed all the reviews requested by the Ministry of Health. Currently there are no more reviews that are still being processed at BPKP. We want the arrears of bills for hospital services in 2020 to be completed immediately," he said, quoted from Antara, Monday, June 28.

He explained that the application for verification of arrears of bills in 2020 submitted by the Ministry of Health was Rp. 3.89 trillion in four stages, including overpayments to be taken into account in the next claim of Rp. 113 billion.

"The results of the BPKP review conclude that the arrears of bills that meet the formal requirements to be paid are IDR 2.56 trillion for 909 hospitals, including corrections for overpayments of IDR 760 billion in 258 hospitals," he said.

From a total of 1,385 hospitals whose bills were reviewed, he continued, there were still 160 hospitals that had not completed the administrative requirements with a bill of Rp695 billion.

"The total potential savings that BPKP managed to find was IDR 1.66 trillion, or 42 percent of the total arrears review requests from the Ministry of Health worth IDR 3.89 trillion," said Michael.

He also emphasized that not all bills from this hospital had to go through verification from the BPKP, but only arrears for bills in 2020 and the value was above IDR 2 billion.

In addition, he added that there were still arrears on bills for reimbursement for the treatment of COVID-19 patients in 2020 which had not yet been submitted to BPKP.

According to Michael, the arrears of bills are still being processed at the Ministry of Health, both in the Dispute Claims Settlement Team (TPKD) as well as the reconciliation and verification process with each hospital.

"Until now, the arrears of bills for 2020 that are still being verified by the Ministry of Health's TPKD are IDR3.14 trillion for disputed claims as of December 31, 2020 and the Provincial TPKD is around IDR6.93 trillion," he said.

Furthermore, there is still Rp5.39 trillion that has gone through the Official Verification Result (BAHV) BPJS until May 2021 which still has to be reconciled and verified by the Ministry of Health for each hospital.

Therefore, BPKP asks the Ministry of Health to complete the reconciliation and verification process as well as dispute resolution that is being carried out on arrears in hospital service bills in 2020, because this will be a reference for BPKP in conducting reviews.

"As long as the review request from the Ministry of Health has completed the formal documents, we can complete the BPKP review process quickly, on average it is completed within a week after the review request is submitted," said Michael.

Overall, he hopes that the payment of hospital claims where the formal documents have been fulfilled can be accelerated by referring to the results of the BPKP verification.

In accordance with Minister of Finance Regulation (PMK) Number 208/PMK.02/2020 concerning Procedures for Budget Revision 2021, article 16 paragraph (4) states that budget revisions related to payment of arrears in 2020 with a value above Rp. 2 billion must be accompanied by verification results from BPKP.

This requirement is not to hinder the bill payment process, but to ensure good financial governance, the application of prudential principles in the use of the budget, and to avoid bigger problems in the future.