Chairman Of The Board Of Health BPJS Achmad Yurianto About Bearing The Cost Of Handling COVID-19 Patients: I Have Not Been In Communication With The Director

Illustration (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Health Social Security Administering Agency (BPJS) Achmad Yurianto said that he did not know in detail about the scheme of his institution which was included by the government to share the burden of the costs of COVID-19 patients.

According to him, the information has not been conveyed in its entirety so he cannot comment further. Moreover, the former government spokesman for the handling of COVID-19 admitted that there had been no communication with the management.

"I have not communicated with the president director (BPJS Kesehatan)," he said when contacted by VOI on Wednesday, August 18.

The editor then contacted BPJS Kesehatan Managing Director Ali Ghufron Mukti to find out more about this clarity. However, until this news was published, Ali still had not responded to questions about the role of BPJS Kesehatan in this latest government plan.

Just so you know, the government through the Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani earlier this week said that the cost of treating COVID-19 patients from 2022 will be supported by BPJS Health.

"Starting 2022 BPJS Kesehatan will participate in the cost sharing of COVID-19 patients," he said at a virtual press conference on Monday, August 16.

According to the Minister of Finance, one of the reasons why the government embraced the social security institution was because other focus would be directed to solving the stunting problem in Indonesia.

"In addition to handling COVID patients, another focus in the health sector is dealing with stunting in the community, as well as encouraging national health system reform by building a number of health infrastructures to deal with the pandemic," he said.

BPJS Kesehatan itself claims that financial conditions have improved along with a number of reforms carried out. Citing an official release related to the financial statements for the 2020 period, it is known that there was an improvement in net assets to minus Rp5.69 trillion, from minus Rp50.99 trillion in 2019.

It was also stated that the slick performance could not be separated from the impact of the adjustment of contributions in accordance with the mandate of Presidential Regulation 64 of 2020. Then, BPJS Kesehatan stated that there were no default claims and a surplus in cash flow of Rp. 18.74 trillion as of December 31, 2020.

Meanwhile, contribution income for last year reached 139.85 trillion, an increase from 2019 which was Rp. 111.75 trillion. Meanwhile, the number of registered participants was 222.46 million as of the close of 2020.