Gaps in Philippine medical system force patients into debt, healthcare workers to leave for work overseas

HEALTH FINANCING

However, these reforms require funding.
 
In the Philippines, public healthcare is financed through the DOH’s annual national allocation, a locality’s budget for health, other social welfare programmes, and a patient’s out of pocket spending.

Over half of hospitals in the Philippines are privately run. 

Some government medical facilities are run by a locality, and others by the DOH. There are also others that are independent revenue-generating state hospitals.

Revenue from betting centres managed by a state-run firm, Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, are also used to help pay hospital bills of needy patients. Other forms of assistance are available through government agencies.

The process of securing funding, however, can be long and arduous, as in the case of Mr Lescano, whose family had to line up at different offices for financial assistance. 

Cyrus, was admitted at a private hospital. But some public hospitals already have so-called Malasakit Centres (Care Centres), where these different agencies extending social assistance are represented for ease in processing applications.

In 2012, the Philippine government imposed so-called sin taxes on products such as cigarettes and alcohol. The taxes help fund the health department and PhilHealth.

Advocates are hoping that electronic cigarettes or vapes can be included in the future.

PhilHealth, however, has drawn flak for delayed payments of its obligations to private hospitals.  

Dr Ona, the former health secretary, said digitisation would be helpful to streamline the processing of the claims.

Dr Campued, the public health specialist, however, said electronic medical records are still not uniform across hospitals, making the processing more difficult. 

As part of a pilot programme, PhilHealth is testing advance payments to healthcare providers for its coverage of out-patient services under its outpatient benefit package dubbed Konsulta.