Globalization, Sustainable Development and other Perspectives of Development

Final Paper
Name of Scholar: SIBELLE B. ESTRADA
Agency: PhilHealth

REFLECTION POINT

What are the opportunities and threats presented by globalization to the area of
responsibility of your office and how should your office respond?

With the passage of the Universal Health Care Act of 2018 (Republic Act 11223),
the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) has a bigger responsibility
to ensure that all Filipinos are given financial risk protection when it comes to their
health. And in this more globalized world where information can be had at the blink
of an eye, where travel has been made a lot easier with the advent of all the budget
airlines and flight promos, and where separation is no longer by six degrees but less,
PhilHealth’s role to protect the Filipinos’ health against local and foreign health
threats has become more apparent and it needs to be increasingly more proactive in
formulating and providing new benefit packages for it to be relevant to the newly
globalized Filipinos.

When the PhilHealth implemented the Overseas Filipino Program, Overseas

Filipino Worker (OFW) members of PhilHealth were now able to brag that they can
access their healthcare, be confined anywhere in the world and can still claim for
their PhilHealth benefits by just providing the proof of their hospitalization, statement
of account and official receipts. This benefit was extended to all members of
PhilHealth regardless of membership category. By providing the PhilHealth’s value
of accessibility and portability to its members, primarily it’s OFW members,
PhilHealth has now globalized its services and addressed the needs of our OFW or
our “Bagong Bayani”.

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 Globalization, Sustainable Development and other Perspectives of Development
Final Paper

In one of it’s mandates, PhilHealth is tasked to immediately provide for quality

health care benefits which can be provided for any illness or disease. This was
tested in 2015, when the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus (MERS-
CoV) was deemed highly contagious and posed as a health risk for the OFWs
working in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. When the MERS-CoV was detected,
therefore resulting to a global health scare and a global health crisis by the speed in
which it can be spread, its highly contagious nature, and ability to infect hundreds of
people, PhilHealth responded and immediately issued benefits coverage for
confirmed cases of the MERS-CoV Virus (PhilHealth Circular No. 001 s. 2015).

The world indeed, has become smaller, or as Thomas Friedman would say, “the
world has become flat”. In this highly globalized world, competition seems to be the
norm and various healthcare institutions worldwide are consistently thinking of ideas
and programs to provide better health care services and health care networks for the
people they serve. PhilHealth has recognized this fact and has caught up.
Globalization has resulted to a diverse and improved health services and benefits
covering all Filipinos.

When the world’s leaders agreed to the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Goals,
PhilHealth anchored its programs to achieve these goals and in promoting “good
health and well-being” (health - united nations sustainable development). PhilHealth
aims to take advantage of the opportunities that comes with being global, such as
the (a) improvement of health systems and provision of health care for all Filipinos,
(b) expansion of the PhilHealth coverage to include not just hospitalization but also
dental care and mental care, and laboratory tests and check-ups, both of which are
preventive in nature, (c) rapid response to local and foreign health threats, (d)
storage of members’ health data for research purposes, ( e) sharing the experiences
and best practices from other countries’ health systems, and ( f) better opportunities

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 Globalization, Sustainable Development and other Perspectives of Development
Final Paper
to disseminate information and knowledge regarding health concerns and health
care benefits thru information and communication technology.

Since PhilHealth has to provide quality healthcare for all, it is being threatened by
its own lack of information security to safeguard its data and hackers can easily hack
into its system to steal valuable health information, development of its own digital
programs and systems is still slow and is not at par with other countries, internal and
external fraud systems are not yet properly in place, the financial stability and
viability of the program is at risk since PhilHealth has a history of not being able to
collect arrears from the Local Government Units (LGUs) and the Department of
Budget and Management (DBM), the lack of enough health care professionals to
take care of the patients will affect the delivery of services, and addressing the most
immediate concern of all, the proliferation of fake news regarding PhilHealth’s
benefits and availment.

When it started, PhilHealth has been provided technical assistance by the

Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and German Technical
Cooperation Agency (GTZ) and they continue to do so. PhilHealth has greatly
benefited from globalization thru international cooperation with its partner nations
and this helped shaped the way we developed our benefit programs. Thus,
PhilHealth must strive to prove that it is at par with global health care system
standards by continuing to provide its members with competitive benefit packages,
ensure the health security of all Filipinos, specially the OFWs, strengthen its
information security and fraud mechanisms, properly coordinate with local officials in
order to improve collection efficiency, to fast track the development of its own IT
systems and programs, hire competent health care professionals and providing them
with competitive employee benefits, and undertake a massive information and
education campaign using trimedia and information communication technology in
order to counteract the proliferation of fake news regarding PhilHealth.

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 Globalization, Sustainable Development and other Perspectives of Development
Final Paper

PhilHealth must be receptive to the health needs of the people in order for it to be
relevant in their lives and not just be a waste of taxpayer’s money. Providing
financial risk protection is one key avenue where government services are being felt
by the people. Placing anti-fraud mechanisms also help protect the people’s funds
and this is a priority. People should not only be informed of their rights, privileges
and benefits, but they should be undertaken to report all sorts of fraudulent practices
and behavior of healthcare providers, institutions and professionals. They should
have a readily accessible avenue to report fraud to.

Undertaking various researches and technology advancements, PhilHealth will

continue to do its job and take care of its country’s and people’s health. PhilHealth
will always want to improve the way it provides its services because shows that it
cares. And in this globalized world, caring is what’s important.

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