News
Kids are Healthier with Expanded Insurance,
Better Incentives for Docs - October 23, 2007
Improved health outcomes result from full health insurance support for children or when hospital staffmembers are given performance-based bonuses.
These were the results generated from the Quality Improvement Demonstration Study (QIDS) which the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) is undertaking, in partnership with the Department of Health (DOH), UPecon Foundation, and the University of California San Francisco - Institute for Global Health.
In the QIDS project sites, the current PhilHealth benefits provide an estimated support of 60 percent of hospital charges and 40 percent of total spending if drugs purchased outside the hospital are included. But when PhilHealth expanded insurance benefits to fully cover total hospital and purchases made outside of hospital premises during confinement in QIDS project sites, the study team found that insurance support increased to over 80 percent of hospital charges. Moreover, children's weights increased and clinical health measures improved significantly.
On the other hand, in QIDS hospitals where PhilHealth offered modest financial incentives to hospital staffmembers, the quality of care improved significantly. In these hospitals, better confinement outcomes were noted and overall improvements in children's health were reported by mothers. The study team also attributed these outcomes to the system of quality monitoring introduced in the hospitals included in the study.
The QIDS was started in 2003 and is expected to be completed in 2008. It is being conducted in 30 public hospital districts in ten provinces in the Visayas and Camiguin.
The findings from QIDS are the first of its kind in terms of its magnitude of contribution to the medical and health economic literature, given its random experiment design and its innovative data collection techniques. Its relevance to health policy in the Philippines is especially noteworthy as it seeks to evaluate two specific reform instruments supported by the Health Sector Reform Agenda of the DOH. Through this study, PhilHealth helps the nation in meeting the Millennium Development Goal of improved health of Filipino children by expanding not only the magnitude of financial protection, but more importantly, its quality.
The research findings will become valuable inputs for the review of the PhilHealth benefit packages which the government agency is conducting for the first time since 1995.