​Activity No.

1: Philippine Health Care Delivery System​

1. ​The Philippine healthcare delivery system key components​ are the

government, the public, and providers. The government plans and budgets
healthcare spending, the public consumes the health care services as
patients, and providers are the professionals that provide healthcare. The
government administers health care in the public sector, which is funded by a
tax-based budgeting system. In contrast, the private sector comprises both
profit and non-profit healthcare providers, health services are being paid for
and it is market driven. Only 30% of the country’s population is served by the
private sector, leaving the rest of the population (70%) in the public sector.
Despite the private sector having significantly fewer clients, they have it better
in terms of financial resources and staff. This implies that the 70% who are
served by the public sector get less quality healthcare services and
accessibility is not as great as the private sector.

2. There is a significant difference between urban and rural hospitals. Access to

healthcare has a huge impact on a region’s quality of life. The majority of
doctors practice in urban areas, creating large discrepancies in number in
contrast to rural areas. Higher accessibility and compensation allow urban
hospitals to employ more manpower than rural hospitals. Rural hospitals are
at a major disadvantage because of their location, making it harder to obtain
all of the medical supplies they need. Technology in rural hospitals is also
lagging urban hospitals. Take the child mortality rate in NCR, CAR, and
ARMM in the year of 2009. NCR has a child mortality rate of 8 dates per 1000
children under the age of 5. CAR is more than double that of NCR, which has
20 deaths per 100 children. Lastly, ARMM has four times more than NCR with
33 deaths per 1000 children (Senate of the Philippines 19th Congress, 2009).
There should be a proper allocation of healthcare workers across the regions
of Philippines, the country can also invest more in Telemedicine allowing a
wider scope to be given access to healthcare to.

3. The public sector can accommodate more patients, but many public health
institutions lack equipment and manpower to care for everyone in a timely
manner. On the other hand, private sector institutions are more consistent
with their care. Private health institutions are better equipped to provide
service, but it comes with a price. Because of the high cost of private sector
services, not every Filipino can afford it. There is also a considerable disparity
between the public and private sector with regard to technological
advancement (MedHyve, 2021). According to a journal conducted in the
 United States, both the public and private sectors benefit from coexistence.
Specifically, the private sector maximizes its profits by recruiting customers
who have higher consumer spells while the public sector focuses more on
clients who have shorter consumer spells. When both types of sectors are
present, a greater range of client types will be able to access healthcare
(Dalton & Bradford, 2019).

4. PhilHealth is ​the administrator of the National Health insurance program​,

intended to deliver ​universal health insurance coverage for all Filipinos​. This
guarantees that healthcare services are affordable, available and accessible
to many Filipinos. Philhealth protects every member with comprehensive
coverage packages that are preventive and curative (Kwik.insure, 2022). In
the era of universal health coverage PhilHealth is seeing challenges
regarding reimbursement processes. In a 2018 journal it showed that for
some ​health centers reimbursements were not paid despite claims​ ​being
made. Other health centers​ have ​stopped claiming reimbursements​ whilst
​providing​health services. This poses a problem to the quality of services and
continuous medical resources if health centers like this are not being
reimbursed properly. PhilHealth must streamline its procedures improving
re-accreditation and reimbursement ​processes so that health centers​ may
​see the​ advantages ​of becoming​ ​a PhilHealth accredited service provider​
(Querri et al., 2018).

5. The lack of infrastructure and human resources are some of the current
challenges of the Philippine healthcare delivery system (Business Wire,
2017). Despite being one of the countries that provides the most nurses to
foreign countries, the Philippines is experiencing a shortage of nurses and
healthcare workers, impacting healthcare access in the country negatively.
Many healthcare professionals have decided to work abroad in search of
better employment opportunities. This may be mitigated if the government
places a temporary ban or permanent limitation on nurse migration and offers
higher compensation and employment possibilities enticing Filipino nurses to
stay. In this modern age, enhancing telemedicine would also be extremely
beneficial due to the lack of infrastructure and resources in hospitals;
telemedicine offers reduced costs and provides more healthcare access for
those living in rural or underserved urban areas.
References: