TWENTY-THREE (23) agents and 10 Teleserv officers to be trained on key business processes for 16 days.

This is the commitment made by the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) to Pilipinas Teleserv Inc., its Contract Service Provider for the partial outsourcing of some functions of its Corporate Action Center.

As Contract Service Provider, Pilipinas Teleserv Inc. will operate the PhilHealth Contact Center on a 24 x 7 basis, including holidays, with service availability of 99.95 percent. It also guarantees to deploy 23 agents and ten (10) supervisors at any given time, to handle telephone/voice calls and electronic mails from PhilHealth stakeholders.

The training, which started on July 10 of this year, includes ten (10) modules covering such areas as Health Care Financing and the National Health Insurance Program (NHIP), membership processes, benefits and benefits availment, information security, electronic services, and website to provide Pilipinas Teleserv Inc. with the needed basic information on PhilHealth. Teleserv’s System Navigation was also discussed. An operations immersion and revalida will also be undertaken to complete the 16-day training.

Resource speakers for the said activity are PhilHealth officers Arsenia B. Torres, Senior Manager of the Social Health Insurance Academy (SHIA), Maria Sophia B. Varlez, Senior Manager of the Corporate Communication Department, Rey T. Baleña, Senior Manager of the Member Management Group (MMG) – Formal Sector, Delio Aseron, Head of the Corporate Action Center (CAC), Dr. Robert L. Balaoing and Jose Antonio V. Fernando of the Benefits Development and Research Department, Dr. Jocelyn V. Maala of the Primary Care Benefit Team, Dr. Mary Antonette Y. Remonte of the Millennium Development Goals Team, Dr. Leilani V. Asprer, OIC-Senior Manager of Accreditation Department, Ronald Allan C. Pablo, OIC-Senior Manager of the Corporate Information Security Department, and Ms. Myla L. Buemio from the Member Management Group, assisted by Sam Anthony Ramirez, Tom Evert Cruz, and Guillermo Razon, Jr. from the Information Technology Management Department. Assisting the group in operations immersion are Rio Ronan Santos, Head of Local Health Insurance Office (LHIO) Pasig and Annabelle Llanto , Public Affairs Officer of PhilHealth Regional Office – National Capital Region’s South Branch.

Considering that only 15 agents currently handle the in-house call center, the partial outsourcing service will complement the daily operations and eventually bring down the rate of unentertained calls from 50 to 10 percent, and free-up CAC agents to enable them to attend to the Short Messaging System (SMS) and social media channels that will be promoted soon.

PhilHealth, on the other hand, shall make available to Pilipinas Teleserv Inc. the basic membership, contribution, benefits availment and other databases for limited use in this engagement.

The Contract Service Provider shall also establish a systematic escalation process for aging, unique and follow-up transactions. These shall be forwarded to PhilHealth’s attention through the CAC using an automated escalation module.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

PhilHealth is optimistic that the recent partnership will further enhance contact center and agent performance, and optimize member experience for increased customer satisfaction. It shall last for a year, but the state-run health insurance company is hopeful that it will be renewed until PhilHealth is capable of better serving its 93 million beneficiaries.

Pilipinas Teleserv Inc. is a Filipino-owned Business Process Outsourcing company that began operations in June 2000 as multi-channel contact center provider at the time the BPO industry was still at its infancy in the Philippines. Its strength is built on the Filipino professional’s world-renowned expertise in customer service and the ability to develop customized business process solutions, and has provided an extensive range of highly customized solutions and services to a very diverse clientele spanning across the telecommunications, utilities, public service, food, and finance industries.

The training was jointly organized by PhilHealth’s SHIA and CAC in coordination with Pilipinas Teleserv. (END) (by Emelita M. Retuta; Photos by Jose Mari Sanvicente)

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