Insurance commissioner Emmanuel Dooc said he will push for a law to regulate health maintenance organizations, including capitalization and solvency requirements.
Dooc told reporters in an interview there was a need to legislate a law covering HMOs to make it more binding.
An HMO is a prepaid healthcare service provider offering comprehensive coverage to members through partnerships with hospitals and other health professionals.
He said in the absence of a law, the IC was set to release an administrative circular for HMOs in the country that would impose minimum capitalization and financial capacity for HMOs.
“Administrative issuance will come from us. But what is critical is there must be a law to make it more binding. An issuance, which is administrative in nature, may later on be disregarded or rebuilt by any new commissioner,” Dooc said.
“I requested for a meeting with [Finance] Secretary Carlos Dominguez to discuss…. the possibility of introducing an HMO bill because right now after it was transferred to us, there was no sufficient guideline on how to administer and govern the industry, so we are hurriedly preparing the guidelines for the HMO, but I’d rather have a law,” he said.
HMOs were placed under the watch of IC from the Health Department after former President Benigno Aquino III signed Executive Order No. 192 in November.
Under the order, regulatory and supervisory capacities of the Health Department is transferred to IC, covering establishment, operations and financial activities.
A circular drafted by the IC early this year proposed a minimum capitalization of P100 million for new HMOs and P10 million for existing businesses.
“That may be modified, may be disregarded, once a law is set up. For the time being, we wanted to strengthen the financial capacity of the players, so we put in P100 million for new players,” Dooc said.
