News
PhilHealth, GSK to Introduce Computerized Monitoring of
Out-Patient Benefits Availment - October 27, 2006
SOON, municipal and city health officers will no longer manually monitor the type of out-patient diagnostic procedures that Sponsored Members of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) avail themselves of at rural health units (RHUs).
The OP Benefits System replaces the monitoring sheet that MHOs and CHOs manually fill out and submit to us at the end of each month to enable us to process the capitation fund that the local government units are entitled to, said Lorna O. Fajardo, Acting PhilHealth President and CEO. The computer system was developed under the Family Health and Wellness Program that PhilHealth is jointly undertaking with the GlaxoSmithKline Foundation, Inc.
Fajardo said that "…this new development will make benefits monitoring and analysis possible in real time." It will also monitor the participation of indigent members and non-members in health education seminars organized by the health centers or RHUs.
Initially, the new system will be installed in selected RHUs in the 11 project sites of the PhilHealth-GSKF Family Health and Wellness Program. These include Sto. Domingo in Ilocos Sur; Tacloban, Leyte; Mainit, Surigao del Norte; Nabunturan, Compostela Valley; Payatas in Quezon City, three towns in Pangasinan, Cainta and Taytay in Rizal Province; and in the City of Manila. We hope to start installing the new system in Payatas and in Ilocos Sur in two to three weeks' time, she said.
The OPB System has both web-based and client server applications to ensure that data encoding, processing and transmission will be very convenient for personnel of the selected RHUs and health centers. These applications will also ensure uninterrupted operation while safeguarding the data on members’ benefits availment.
For RHUs and health centers in the project sites that do not have Internet access yet, the GSKF will be providing free subscription for one year. At the same time, the GSKF will roll out the brand-new central processing units (CPUs) with built-in CD-ROM and internal modem for all project sites. These are certainly good news for LGUs under the Family Health and Wellness Program, Fajardo said, adding that PhilHealth will soon be training the RHU personnel on the proper use of the new system.
Through this system, we hope to generate accurate and reliable
data on the out-patient diagnostic benefits from members under
the participating LGUs so that we can appropriately determine
what benefits are most needed by our sponsored members,
Fajardo stressed.