When doctors’ fees become the wrong conversation

Every few years, a familiar storyline returns.

A patient receives a hospital bill that feels impossibly high. A screenshot circulates. A name is mentioned. Social media reacts. And before anyone has had a chance to pause, the phrase “exorbitant doctors’ fees” becomes the headline.

It happened again recently.

The reaction is understandable. Healthcare costs are frightening. Most Filipino families live one hospitalization away from financial distress. When the bill arrives, it does not feel abstract or academic — it feels personal, urgent and deeply unfair.

But here is the uncomfortable truth: when we focus almost entirely on doctors’ professional fees, we end up having the wrong conversation.

Not because fees do not matter.

But because they are not the reason patients are still paying so much.

Last week, Health Secretary Ted Herbosa made an important clarification — one that quietly but decisively shifted the discussion. He stated that doctors’ professional fees are not under the regulatory supervision of the Department of Health (DoH), and that among private patients, these fees are an agreed-upon rate for a doctor’s expertise. What government can do, he explained, is decide how it strategically purchases professional services, based on acceptable norms defined by specialty societies.

It may sound technical, but the distinction is crucial.

It means the DoH is not preparing to police doctors’ prices or impose arbitrary caps. Instead, it is acknowledging something many in healthcare have long understood: the State’s real leverage lies not in controlling what doctors charge, but in deciding what it will pay for — and whether it pays enough.

This matters, because professional fees have become a convenient lightning rod for public frustration, while the deeper problem remains largely untouched.

Doctors’ fees are not the primary driver of catastrophic health spending. The real drivers are structural and persistent: limited PhilHealth benefit packages, outdated case rates, delayed reimbursements and coverage that falls short of the actual cost of quality care.

When insurance coverage is thin, everything else feels expensive.

When reimbursements are delayed or inadequate, hospitals and physicians are forced to operate in a narrow space — balancing compassion, sustainability and reality.

And when patients fall through those gaps, frustration looks for a face. Doctors are visible. The system is not.

This is why professional medical societies have been careful in their response. The Philippine College of Physicians recently expressed concern that the public narrative is drifting toward blaming doctors, while diverting attention from the more fundamental issue of health financing. They acknowledged the hardship patients face — but warned that pitting patients against physicians erodes trust and solves nothing.

That warning deserves to be taken seriously.

Most doctors do not price care in a vacuum. Professional fees reflect years — often decades — of training, specialization, continuing education and responsibility. They reflect complexity, time, risk and context. A routine clinic visit is not the same as managing a critically ill patient at three in the morning. A straightforward procedure is not the same as salvaging a complication no one else wants to touch.

At the same time, many doctors quietly discount fees, accept delayed payments, honor guarantee letters and provide charity care without announcement or applause. They do so not because social media demands it, but because the profession does.

That does not mean abuses do not exist. Any profession has outliers. But the proper place to address truly predatory behavior is through professional regulation and due process, not trial-by-Facebook. Secretary Herbosa was clear on this as well: legitimate complaints about professional conduct belong with the Board of Medicine, not in comment sections.

What does need to change — urgently — is transparency and predictability.

Patients should not be surprised by their bills. They deserve to know, early on, what a hospitalization is likely to cost, what PhilHealth will cover, and what remains their responsibility. Asking about fees and requesting official receipts is not anti-doctor; it is pro-patient and pro-system.

But transparency alone will not fix underfunding.

If we are serious about Universal Health Care, then PhilHealth benefit packages must evolve to reflect real-world costs. Reimbursements must be timely. Professional services must be purchased strategically and sustainably — using benchmarks developed with specialty societies, not shaped by soundbites.

When insurance works, professional fees stop being the villain in the story.

One comment on the Secretary’s post captured this quietly but powerfully: a physician noted that a P500 outpatient consultation now costs less than an air-conditioner checkup — and wondered, without malice, how much lawyers charge as acceptance fees.

It was not said in anger.

It was said in disbelief.

That comparison resonated because it exposed something we rarely articulate: we expect medical care to be both excellent and inexpensive, while accepting high fees as normal in almost every other professional service.

Healthcare should never bankrupt families.

But it cannot survive on moral pressure alone.

If we want fewer viral screenshots, fewer angry posts, and fewer moments where doctors are forced to defend themselves in public, then we must stop treating professional fees as the central problem.

The real question is not whether doctors charge too much.

The real question is whether our health system is funded well enough so that Filipinos no longer have to argue about fees at the bedside at all.

Until we answer that honestly, we will keep circling the wrong issue — and wondering why nothing changes.