THE Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) once again received the coveted International Organization for Standardization – Quality Management System (ISO-QMS) 9001:2008 Certificate, following the recommendation of the third party auditor, Anglo Japanese American (AJA) Registrars Inc. (AJA).

This time, the certification expands the coverage nationwide as it includes the remaining 16 PhilHealth Regional Offices (PROs), one (1) Local Health Insurance Office (LHIO) per PRO and two (2) Branch Offices, with validity until September 2018.

The newly covered LHIOs include Manila, Benguet, Eastern Pangasinan, Ilagan, Bataan, Lipa, Catanduanes, Antique, Dumaguete, Tacloban, Zamboanga del Norte, Bukidnon, Tagum, Kidapawan, Tandag and Marawi. The two (2) Branch Offices include National Capital Region - South and PhilHealth Regional Office’s Branch III-A.

The AJA assessed the compliance of newly covered offices against the ISO QMS standards on November 14 to December 22, 2016. The scope of registration of PhilHealth’s QMS is “Public Administration” covering the corporation’s core / realization processes that include member coverage, benefit delivery and provider management; as well as its management and support processes.

Being an ISO-certified institution, PhilHealth is expected to drive continuous improvement of the National Health Insurance Program (NHIP) processes and its services to consistently fulfill member requirements. This assures PhilHealth members that research and development processes for product and service enhancement are geared towards achieving customer satisfaction.

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Initially, the ISO 9001:2008 Certification was awarded to PhilHealth Central Office, Regional Office IV-A in Lucena City and Local Health Insurance Office – Calamba last December 2014. In 2015, PhilHealth endeavored to expand the implementation of the QMS and obtain the ISO certification for all PROs and one LHIO per PRO.

Recently, PhilHealth was selected by the Government Quality Management Committee as one of the priority agencies for the expansion and transition to ISO 9001:2015 standard.

Dr. Clementine A. Bautista, PhilHealth Vice President for Corporate Planning and Organization System Development said that a series of ISO 9001:2015 Awareness and Transition Seminars have already been conducted in Manila, Davao City and Bataan for PhilHealth officers and personnel directly responsible in the QMS implementation to gain understanding of the requirements of the standards to enable the organization to realize more benefits from using ISO 9001. She stressed that “an organization like PhilHealth must be ISO 9001 Certified so we can focus ourselves on meeting customer expectations and on delivering customer satisfaction.” With the release of the ISO 9001:2015, risk-based thinking and emphasis on leadership from Top Management is highlighted while monitoring and continuous improvement of the QMS implementation shall be ensured. (END) (Faudia H. Subillaga and Glomeda C. Pactores)

(Reference: Dr. Israel Francis A. Pargas, Head Executive Assistant and Concurrent OIC-Vice President for Corporate Affairs Group, Cel No. 0917-8089399)