PhilHealth, LGUs address low registration for Konsulta

Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) President Dr. Edwin Mercado said the state-owned insurer has been talking with leaders of local government units (LGUs) on faster registration of hospitals, clinics, and patients for the Konsulta program.

He said this is important in providing all Filipinos affordable medicines, laboratory services, consultation and primary healthcare under that program.

PhilHealth reported only 27.8 million out of its total 102.75 million members have registered for Konsulta.

“I agree that the registrations are still low. But we’re already working harder with the LGUs,” Mercado said last Thursday in a media briefing in Pasig City.

The PhilHealth chief said that an LGU official told him that only 12 percent of its over 600,000 residents are PhilHealth-registered.

IT professional

“But after hiring an IT professional, they expect half of the total to be registered this year,” Mercado said.

Mercado added PhilHealth has been coordinating with the Department of Education (DepEd) to provide young students with primary healthcare so they can become productive contributors to the nation’s socioeconomic growth.

“There are 24 million students at DepEd-accredited schools,” he said.

Mercado said PhilHealth is also verifying the number of Filipinos who are direct and indirect contributors to the state-owned insurer.

Currently, he said 91 percent of the qualified individuals in the country are already registered with PhilHealth.

Data consolidation

PhilHealth further coordinates with the Government Service Insurance System and the Philippine Statistics Authority to consolidate data.

However, even with the data from the national statistician, Mercado said achieving 100 percent PhilHealth registration is impossible as some Filipinos have migrated to other countries.

PHilHealth senior vice president for Health Finance Policy Israel Francis Pargas stressed that hospitals and clinics must still provide all Filipinos the proper healthcare despite their lack of registration with the government-owned insurer.