‘Only 10 cataract operations daily for eye surgeons’

MANILA, Philippines - Amid the ongoing probe into allegedly fraudulent claims of some eye doctors and centers, the state health insurance firm said starting yesterday, an eye surgeon is allowed to perform only up to 10 cataract surgeries per day.

In a circular, the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) said it would allow “only a maximum of 50 requests for pre-surgery authorization per PhilHealth-accredited eye surgeons per month, not exceeding 10 scheduled surgeries per day.”

PhilHealth president and chief executive officer Alexander Padilla said the limit on the number of cataract pre-surgery authorization (CPSA) requests and cataract surgeries “shall apply to all health care providers except for those performed by residents-in-training in accredited government and private (healthcare institutions) with a Philippine Board of Opthalmology (PBO) accredited residency training program.”

Padilla said accredited training institutions, both private and government, shall make their log books – which contain the list of surgeries performed by residents – available to PhilHealth for inspection and monitoring.

PhilHealth Circular 018-2015 defines cataract as “opacity of the lens that may or may not be associated with visual problems and manifest as an obstruction of the red orange reflex on funduscopy.”