IN celebration of its 23rd Anniversary, the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) organized a Policy Forum on Provider Payment Reforms Towards Universal Health Coverage that was held last March 7-9, 2018 at the Marquis Events Place, in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.
Health Secretary Dr. Francisco T. Duque III delivered the Keynote Address while resource persons from local and international health organizations presented best practices in provider payment.
In his address, Duque emphasized that, “the journey to the universal health care requires that we not only mobilize additional resources but also coordinate the various sources of health funding through a sector-wide approach to be able to pool and advocate rationally across all levels from the national and local sources of health funding as well as public and private sources. We also need to maximize these resources by targeting priority programs where they shall yield the maximum health impact of the entire population especially the poor in terms of improving health outcomes in the overall quality life of our people.”
Dr. Celestina Ma. Jude P. de la Serna, Interim President and CEO welcomed the guests to the Policy Forum saying, “...let this Policy Forum be an opportunity to learn from the masters to help us analyze what the country needs, especially now that legislative measures are being pushed to redefine PhilHealth’s mandate so it can serve as catalyst to Universal Health Care.”
The Policy Forum, which was supported by the World Bank, was envisioned to create opportunities for key actors in the health care system to explore possible policy options to reform the provider payment system in the country by learning from international experiences. The participants had an exclusive opportunity to learn from various counties’ provider payment reforms and assess which one would best be adopted in the Philippine setting.
First day of the three-day activity was participated in by high level decision-makers from PhilHealth, Department of Health (DoH) and other stakeholders while days two (2) and three (3) were attended by technical personnel from the same organizations.
Around 200 guests were present in the event. Topics discussed during the five (5) sessions focused on the following: Session 1: Philippine Perspective: Where do we come from and where do we go?; Session 2: Looking Beyond Diagnostic-Related Groups (DRGs); Session 3: DRG: To develop or To adopt?; Session 4: ICT as the enabler for payment reform; and Session 5: Way Forward for the Philippines.
Case studies were presented and discussed by representatives from the Gates Foundation, World Bank, countries of Estonia, USA, Japan, Croatia, Thailand, Korea, Indonesia, Australia and the Philippines.
On the other hand, the technical sessions were able to deep-dive into the advantages and challenges of various provider payment models that enabled the participants to come up with policies that were most appropriate for the Philippine setting. (END) (Nadine B. Navarro)
(Reference: Dr. Israel Francis A. Pargas, Head Executive Assistant and Concurrent OIC-Vice President for Corporate Affairs Group, Cel No. 0917-8089399)
