BRAVO, Maria Cristine A.

September 12, 2020

MPA – RDP Section A PA – 222
20-0912-132

Reflection Essay No. 3

Project Title
Automated Distribution of PhilHealth Reimbursement Share in Bulacan Medical Center

Project Identification
Bulacan Medical Center is a Level 3 and DOH-accredited tertiary, teaching, and
training hospital in the Province of Bulacan. Currently, the hospital has 18 specialty
departments. This includes the Department of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Department
of OB and Gynecology, Department of Surgery, Department of Anesthesiology, Dental
Department, Nursing Service, Nutritional and Dietetics, Medical Records Section, Billing and
Claims Division, Cash Division, Supply Section, Radiology Department, Laboratory
Department, Pharmacy, Engineering and Maintenance, Medical Social Service, and the
Emergency Department.
Last August 17, 2020, the hospital opened its newest building, the Bulacan Molecular
Diagnostic Laboratory. Aside from this, the hospital is also expecting for the opening of its
newest department, the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences; therefore,
additional human resource will also be anticipated.
As for the number of employees of BMC, the data from the Provincial Human Resource
and Management Office states that as of August 2020, BMC has a total number of 809
employees, excluding the employees hired by different agencies such as DOH and SWARM.
With this growing population of BMC, it is common to conclude that automated distribution
for most things is much needed.
As a hospital, the Bulacan Medical Center has two categories for professional fees
payment. One is the professional fee from pay wards. This professional fee goes directly to the
physicians or medical specialists of the hospital. The other one is the reimbursements of
professional fees from the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation for the services rendered
to service wards. When PhilHealth reimburses professional fees of physicians, the
compensation will go to the employees of the hospital. For the Bulacan Medical Center, the
division of this benefit is 50-50. The half of it will be divided to the health personnel of the
hospital and the other half will go to the non-health personnel of the hospital such as the
administrative office, cash division, and others.
 This study addresses the problem of having a manual system despite of the population
of the organization and that this pandemic season that demands the use of cashless transactions.
In the Bulacan Medical Center, the distribution of the PhilHealth reimbursement share is purely
manual and conventional. Employees will fall in line in front of the office of the cashier in able
to claim their shares. On most days, as early as 6:00 in the morning, the employees are already
falling in line to prevent the hassle of going back to the cashier during their duty.
This pandemic, the long and congested line for the PhilHealth reimbursement share is
a real problem. First because it promotes mass gathering. Also, because of the limited space of
the hallway near the cashier, it also violates the protocol of physical distancing. Hence, the use
of automated distribution of the PhilHealth reimbursement share is necessary. It is very
advantageous for it will give an easier and quicker calculation. This solves the delays of
repayment. Instead of having a two month lead period, it could be lessen into a month or even
weeks. The automated distribution will also give a more accurate computation and distribution
of the shares. Moreover, there will be a better and improved record keeping with less clutter. It
also has an increased security since the cashier will no longer have to keep all the envelopes of
almost 900 employees in their office. And lastly, it helps in promoting cashless transactions
most especially in this pandemic season.

Project Definition or Preparation

All organizations have and save comprehensive records of all of their transactions may
it be for operational, administrative, or strategic transactions. Manual record keeping
management systems totally rely on skilled persons. However, the problem on having even a
skilled person for a particular task is that humans are not perfect. With manual systems, it is a
pressure in the part of the management and of course with an even more great pressure on the
part of the assigned employee to be correct in all the details at all times. It is really hard and
time consuming to keep and track correct details, but unfortunately, it is very easy to
accidentally switch inputs and end up having false entry of data. This slight and seems to be an
irrelevant error might cause a huge impact and problem to the whole system. Though it can be
rechecked but rechecking and reporting data is really time taking and also expensive. It takes
more of mental and physical effort to keep track of everything manually. This manual system
can lead to many glitches like inconsistency in data entry. Inconsistency and faulty entries
could generate errors. Another problem in this manual system is that it requires a skilled
independent. The system solely depend on it. This hired skilled individual will have to consume
most of their time in producing the needed reports. Since it is time consuming, the organization
have to pay for that consumed time, which makes the manual system costly. In addition, the
manual system is also prone to false information entry. However, this false information entry
is not just solely because of wrong inputs. Sometimes because it is not protected, it is
susceptible to easy switching and changing of data. An additional is that it is also predisposed
to duplication of data entry. Poor manual system lacks security that is why these glitches are
most probably and feasibly to be encountered.
As seen every day, Information technology has various unique effects on the way
everyone live, learn, work, and even play. Nonetheless, there are tons of reason to be consider
before an organization automates a system. This change is cannot be done on a sudden snap of
a hand. According to Uppin (2017), an evolution of automation process is not and will never
happen in a vacuum. Information technology has made automation as an integral part of this
society specially and most primarily with the modern organizations. Automation become
interrelated with most aspects in a work environment. Supplementary advances in information
technology will unavoidably resonate in the culture and personality of individuals, as well as
organizations.
In most cases, having a new automated system is not successfully implemented for
sometimes, one cannot fully and smoothly implement something that has not existed in their
organization before. In the same manner, changes in the individual and organizational work
pattern will create new demands that will encourage the development of new technologies.
That is why to be able to achieve a positive outcome, the existing but good manual system
should be present already and that this good manual system will just be automated by the new
one. With this, it will be financially beneficial for the organization since the system is easy to
use and understand, simple, and requires a minimal amount of time and manual work.
This study was done for the benefit of the employees of Bulacan Medical Center. This
proposal will accommodate the concerns of the increasing pool of employees of the
organization.
The trend of change in employees for Bulacan Medical Center is that since it is a
teaching and training hospital, there are resident medical officers that stays in the hospital for
only two to three years. There are numerous number of temporary employees. Aside from these
medical residents, there are also employees under the category of contract of service and job
orders. With these frequent change in employees, it would be beneficial if the system of
distributing the PhilHealth reimbursement share will be fully automated. This proposal will
solely focus on the PhilHealth reimbursement manual distribution to the employees. It will
seek the help of the present departments of the Provincial Government of Bulacan, which is
the employment agency of the Bulacan Medical Center.
The Provincial Government of Bulacan has two offices that could help in the
automation of this internal distribution of PhilHealth reimbursement shares. First is the
Provincial Information Technology Office. With the help of PITO, Bulacan Medical Center
could coordinate the existing manual system of distribution to change it into an automated one.
Since the Provincial Government of Bulacan has an existing Human Resource
Information System, the Provincial Information Technology Office already has an existing
pattern system. Through the help of the Provincial Human Resource Management Office, the
employees assigned to the task of accomplishing the manual system of distribution in the
Bulacan Medical Center will be guided on how the processes in the Human Resource
Information System is done and how the distribution of PhilHealth shares is similar to the
distribution of salaries from the automated payroll system. With proper synchronization,
instead of having the distribution made manually, the cash division of the Bulacan Medical
Center could distribute the shares through the payroll Automated Teller Machine cards of the
hospital employees.
As stated by Uppin (2017), the overall perception of the employees with respect to the
benefits that an employee perceive at individual level is that process automations is beneficial
for an organization as well as for themselves. Employees believe that these process of
automation helps with the increase of access of information within the organization – which is
true in the part of Bulacan Medical Center. Employees often ask for computations immediately
after they receive their reimbursement shares. But because of the manual system of
computation, the cash division or the releasing division of the Bulacan Medical Center find it
hard to accommodate all the questions because of the limited automation. When someone
requests for a computation, they have to look back and recheck all the existing computations
which usually consume a lot of their time. If automation of distribution is done, there will be
an enhanced clarity of work as adequate and necessary information is easily accessible. The
automation of distribution will also help in the timely credit and availability of the shares and
hence will make the whole system of shares administration simple. On the other hand,
automation is also beneficial for an organization itself since this will increase the quality of
distribution delivery. Automated distribution, as mentioned by Uppin (2017) encourages better
feedback. Moreover, positive and better feedback helps in building the sense of egalitarianism
or the concept of togetherness within the organization. This improves relations and further
enhance the culture of the whole organization.
 When fully implemented, the concept of automated distribution of shares will impact
the community of the Bulacan Medical Center, the economy, and even the new normal of the
current society.
For the community of the Bulacan Medical Center, employees will be the initial
benefactor of this project. As mentioned by Palladan (2018), the accuracy in reward
computation and timely payment of the benefits of employees, such as this reimbursement
share, increases the productivity of the employees. Claiming their shares will be hassle free.
Instead of falling in line at the earliest time in the morning, employees will just check their
ATM account balances. This hassle-free environment increases productivity which leads in
producing satisfied clients and stakeholders.
For the economy, it will be beneficial since production will be more efficient. Since the
government promotes and follows the Anti-Red Tape Act of 2007, which is an act that
promotes improved efficiency in the delivery of government service to the public by reducing
bureaucratic red tape; therefore, it will be constructive if the project proposed stimulates
production efficiency. In addition, automated system of distribution avoids and gives less
boring repetitive jobs. It enables lesser work on that specific task. It also improves safety and
removes the risk of human error. Lastly, the new normal, which is caused by this pandemic
season, demands cashless transactions.
References

Palladan, Ahmad. (2018). Employees Views on Payroll Computerization and Its Impact on

Their Productivity: A Grounded Theory Approach. Arabian Journal of Business and

Management Review. 8. 1 -5.

Uppin, C. (2017). Study of benefits of HR automation in organisations. International Journal

of Academic Research and Development Volume 2; Issue 6; November 2017; Page No.

254-257.