DAVAO CITY—The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) here said it would make the rounds among private hospitals and clinics in the region to add to its list of accredited health and medical facilities for a wider implementation of the Universal Health Care program.
Filbert Bryan Sollesta, chief of PhilHealth-Region 11 field operations division, said the agency has covered many of the regional health units and city health centers in the Davao Region last year, and has started to accredit also some of the private health facilities.
“This year we will focus on having more private hospitals and health facilities accredited for the Universal Health Care program,” he told a regular Wednesday news conference sponsored by the Mindanao Development Authority at the Abreeza Mall here.
Kleah Guevara, information officer of PhilHealth-11, said the agency would encourage private hospitals and medical facilities to apply for accreditation now. She said the process would be easy “because we have an assessment tool in evaluating them.”
The PhilHealth already accredited 77 health and medical centers and facilities in the region, almost all of them operated and managed by the national and local government units. They have registered 520,247 beneficiaries and could accommodate as many as 1.6 million persons.
The region is composed of Davao del Norte, Davao Oriental, Davao de Oro (formerly Compostela Valley), Davao del Sur, Davao Occidental (formed by the southern towns of Davao del Sur) and Davao City.
A PhilHealth powerpoint presentation said the agency has made headway in registering Filipinos to the program, which is designed to cover all Filipinos, including the indigents and senior citizens and others who could not afford the amortization required by the agency.
Under its Konsulta program, it has registered some 100,930,678 nationwide from out of 113,118,255 total population. This is 89 percent coverage.
In the Davao Region, some 5,042,161 or 92.49 percent have been registered from the region’s population of 5,451,448.
Davao City has the highest registration reaching 2,006,953, exceeding the city population of 1,913,809.
This could be explained by the option of non-residents to register here as they live with their relatives or have been working here.
Davao del Norte has 1,001,583 registrants from out of its population of 1,069,992 (94 percent). Davao del Sur and Davao Occidental have combined registered beneficiaries of 880,516 of out their combined total population of 1,065,848 (83 percent). Davao de Oro has 657,965 registered beneficiaries out of 787,004 (83 percent) and Davao Oriental registered 492,539 beneficiaries out of its population of 614,795 (80 percent).
The PhilHealth said its Konsulta program is “the expended primary care benefit package available for all Filipinos and covers check-up and consultations with a primary care physician, laboratory tests and medicines for common illnesses like hypertension, asthma and diabetes.”