By SAMUEL MEDENILLA
November 15, 2011, 12:36pm
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation
(PhilHealth) is considering implementing a paperless transaction to
intensify its campaign to increase its membership.
PhilHealth President and CEO Eduardo Banzon said during the 12th National Forum on Health Research for Action Monday at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Manila, PhilHealth will develop its Information Technology capabilities to accommodate the surge in its membership.
“We cannot manage this through paper transactions. It has to be done electronically. We will invest in electronic transactions,” Banzon said.
“We will force hospitals and doctors to invest in electronic transaction because if we don’t this we will be forever processing claims. It will be next to impossible to catch up with the volume of transactions if we keep managing this on paper,” he added.
Health Secretary Enrique Ona said in an interview Monday only about 79 percent or 75 million of the estimated 95 million Filipinos are PhilHealth members.
This is expected to rise by another 20 million, most of which from the indigent families, after PhilHealth intensifies its membership program in line with DoH Universal Health Care (UHC) program.
He said this will be a critical step to reduce the number of families, who are vulnerable to sicknesses due to lack of funds for their treatment.
“About 12.6 million families, almost two thirds of whom are poor, were not enrolled in PhilHealth, based on the 2008 National Demographic Health Survey,” Ona said.
“It is of no surprise then that despite increasing government subsidies for health care and expansion of social insurance coverage and benefits, 16.4 million families will still have to forego four months’ worth of income in order to pay for a P65,000 hospital bill,” he said.
Aside from the expansion in the membership of PhilHealth, he said DoH will also hire an additional 12,500 health workers, most of which will be deployed to support government hospitals in remote areas.
The health secretary said they are also currently working on creating an inventory on available medical equipments, facilities, and practitioners, to come out with a more efficient delivery of medical services to patients.
”We must have accurate counts of what facilities are available in which areas so that we may know which areas are in more need of facility upgrades ,” Ona said.
He said these studies will also determine the hospitals, which could be assisted by private companies through Public-Private Partnerships.
He said they are currently proposing an P83.9-billion budget for 2013 to support this program, which is about twice the P42-billion budget for next year.
http://bit.ly/t969RE
PhilHealth President and CEO Eduardo Banzon said during the 12th National Forum on Health Research for Action Monday at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Manila, PhilHealth will develop its Information Technology capabilities to accommodate the surge in its membership.
“We cannot manage this through paper transactions. It has to be done electronically. We will invest in electronic transactions,” Banzon said.
“We will force hospitals and doctors to invest in electronic transaction because if we don’t this we will be forever processing claims. It will be next to impossible to catch up with the volume of transactions if we keep managing this on paper,” he added.
Health Secretary Enrique Ona said in an interview Monday only about 79 percent or 75 million of the estimated 95 million Filipinos are PhilHealth members.
This is expected to rise by another 20 million, most of which from the indigent families, after PhilHealth intensifies its membership program in line with DoH Universal Health Care (UHC) program.
He said this will be a critical step to reduce the number of families, who are vulnerable to sicknesses due to lack of funds for their treatment.
“About 12.6 million families, almost two thirds of whom are poor, were not enrolled in PhilHealth, based on the 2008 National Demographic Health Survey,” Ona said.
“It is of no surprise then that despite increasing government subsidies for health care and expansion of social insurance coverage and benefits, 16.4 million families will still have to forego four months’ worth of income in order to pay for a P65,000 hospital bill,” he said.
Aside from the expansion in the membership of PhilHealth, he said DoH will also hire an additional 12,500 health workers, most of which will be deployed to support government hospitals in remote areas.
The health secretary said they are also currently working on creating an inventory on available medical equipments, facilities, and practitioners, to come out with a more efficient delivery of medical services to patients.
”We must have accurate counts of what facilities are available in which areas so that we may know which areas are in more need of facility upgrades ,” Ona said.
He said these studies will also determine the hospitals, which could be assisted by private companies through Public-Private Partnerships.
He said they are currently proposing an P83.9-billion budget for 2013 to support this program, which is about twice the P42-billion budget for next year.
http://bit.ly/t969RE
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