The Department of Health has included Compostela Valley and Davao del Norte among the 31 advanced implementation sites for the newly signed Universal Health Care (UHC) law.
The initial implementation is crucial because these areas serve as laboratory grounds to determine the gaps and weaknesses of the law.
“The implementation of this universal health is crucial because we have to ensure families should know where they are going, (and) what are the services they can avail, also the health facilities,” DOH XI regional director Dr. Annabelle Yumang said on Monday.
Yumang said they assessed that all the provinces in the list have an established network of health facilities and providers. Their focus now is determining the referral system to easily endorse patients to other health facilities and services.
She said the budget for the first two years of implementation will be taken from the reserved fund of Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth). The 50% national government share of Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation will be also transferred to PhilHealth for its implementation.
According to Yumang, as of now they are still working on crafting the IRR of UHC law. The Philhealth earlier said that the complete IRR will be submitted within the six-month maximum timeline.
Under the UHC law, all Filipinos are automatically included in the National Health Insurance Program where everyone can have access to the full benefit of health care, which includes “preventive, promotive, curative, rehabilitative, and palliative care for medical, dental, mental, and emergency health services.”
