The Philippine Health Insurance Corp.(PhilHealth) on Wednesday said around 36 million Filipinos have registered and availed of its Yaman ng Kalusugan Program (Yakap), which had a budget of P15.3 billion, since it was launched in July.
Speaking during a roundtable discussion with reporters, PhilHealth President and CEO Edwin Mercado said the Yakap program was meant to ‘change our mindset and behavior’ by offering primary care services to Filipinos.
‘When you are already 40 years old, you should have an initial screening of breast cancer, or if you have a family history of colonic cancer, you should have a colonoscopy. That should be the mindset,’ he said. ‘Because when the disease worsens, the cost will be higher.’ ‘Actually, dialysis is the biggest benefit package currently being paid by PhilHealth. Is that right? Or isn’t it better that before we develop diabetes, develop hypertension, we prevent that to avoid going into dialysis. So that’s the basic concept of primary care,’ he added.
According to Mercado, 92 percent of all municipalities of the Philippines already have a PhilHealth-accredited Yakap clinic, where Filipinos may register for the program to receive benefits.
Among these benefits include free checkups, laboratory tests, cancer screening tests and 75 types of medicine. ‘The shift of concept from curative to prevention, if we achieve this, I think our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren will benefit from this,’ Mercado said, urging the public to register for the Yakap program.
‘It will be unfortunate for the next generation of Filipinos if by the time they grow older, they would not be able to benefit from this program, and the curative or emergency type of treatment will continue, which is what we would like to avoid,’ he added. The Yakap program expands on the services previously provided by the PhilHealth’s Konsultasyong Sulit at Tama or Konsulta package. Under Yakap, PhilHealth has launched new benefits such as the Guaranteed and Accessible Medications for Outpatient Treatment, which provides yearly free medicines up to P20,000 a year, as well as selected outpatient cancer screening tests.
According to Mercado, the share of PhilHealth in the current total health-care expenditure of the country has increased to 14 percent from the 10 percent previously recorded.
‘Our target is by 2028, we could raise the share of PhilHealth in the total current health-care expenditure to about 25 to 35 percent,’ he said.
He noted that in provincial hospitals in particular, PhilHealth shares 75 percent to 80 percent of the current health-care expenditure, while in Department of Health-run hospitals, its share was around 50 percent to 60 percent. For private hospitals, where only 10 percent of the beds are in basic accommodation, Mercado said PhilHealth has a share of 40 percent in the health-care expenditure.
‘We really have a huge focus on really promoting primary care and putting resources into it, so that in the long-term, we can reduce our total health-care expenditure,’ Mercado said.