Gov. Daisy Avance-Fuentes said she came up with the plan following their observation that some PhilHealth card holders are shying away from the provincial hospital due to the unavailability of medicines.
“Many of our indigent constituents are PhilHealth card holders but they prefer not to admit their patients to government hospitals. With this scheme, whatever allowable amount set by PhilHealth for their medicines they can get it through the hospital,” she said.
Fuentes said she has started to negotiate the implementation of such scheme, which is part of the local government’s ongoing program to expand the government’s health insurance program for the poor folks in the province.
Under the proposed scheme, she said the amount that would be provided by the provincial government to the hospital will serve as a revolving fund. The patients would directly avail of these funds in the form of medicines, the cost of which would be credited to their benefits from PhilHealth, the governor added.
Fuentes said PhilHealth will just pay for whatever amount the patients consumed during their confinement.
To realize this plan, Fuentes said the local government is seeking for possible funding sources to augment the P5 million that it earlier allocated for the PhilHealth indigency program for this year.
“We will continue to put in our money for this program and we are hoping that our beneficiaries will maximize its use,” she said.
Fuentes said the establishment of a revolving fund for medicines is one of the innovations being undertaken by the provincial government to ensure the effective and efficient delivery of various health services to constituents.
She said the provincial government plans to fully operate the provincial hospital’s new annex building before the end of the year to facilitate the facility’s conversion from secondary to a full-fledged tertiary hospital. She added that the upgrading of the hospital’s status will directly benefit the PhilHealth card holders as it would increase the benefits that they may avail from the health insurance program.