Rizal Philippines
December 20, 2015
We celebrate Christmas in 4 days. Merry Christmas
Will the govt invest in preventive health care?
An accident proved to be very costly
But many will not be happy due to the sad state of health care costs, access, and availability in the Philippines.
Several years back, as I was teaching health professionals in their elective for MBA, I met an accident and had to be operated in a well known hospital in MM. I was attended to by no less than the chief of the hospital (what an honor) but my hospital bills ran up sky high. For two days and the operation (the surgeon and the anesthesiologist were free!) and the initial ER admission, the hospital bill ran into 6 numbers. It was good I had a credit card; (no health care yet as part time professional as a teacher in the school) The rates were definitely way way up ever since the hospital built a new building and revamped its image. It was sort of absurd and paradoxical because the CEO of the hospital who oversaw this jump in their tariff, was also mouthing lower drug costs (through the Generic Law) and nation building in the school where he leads and I follow.
Hospital acquirers are after ROI
Now as JCI accreditation were achieved, as one hospital after another were acquired by conglomorate, and as monopoly is achieved, the hospitals are bent on raising their rates, much to the discomfort of most sick people. The health professionals want also to recoup their huge investments in their education and training, thus some think of exorbitant rates for their procedures, or unhappy with low 5 digits earning More and more the cost of health care is becoming un affordable, and something must be done about this.
This has bothered me to no end. While I strive to make our price and costs in our business reasonable (as I learned in Japanese system of managing - lower costs means more sales and more competitiveness) most of health care facilities were increasing their costs (to attract MDs and buy state of the art facilities to serve medical tourism) the price of health care went up. (Except those which were reimbursed by Philhealth like delivery: natural and CS
Many scholars and experts on health care noted the health care system in the PHL to be largely unregulated with about 70% working in the private sector. No one controls the rates, pf and other costs related to health care although this has large impact on the society and economy. It looks absurd? Yes? The multinational pharrmas with the their agressive and innovative marketing campaigns pay for the trips of MDs abroad, and their conferences and banquet. Cant they be stopped to bring down the cost of medicine. Are some of our govt regulators at the payroll of the pharmas?
Pharmas in India cant do much to blunt govt efforts to bring down the cost of the medicine.
Why Indias Cheap Generic Drugs are important
India cant continue supplying cheap drugs to the world due to TRIPS of WTO
India cant continue supplying cheap drugs to the world due to TRIPS of WTO
And some facilities are escaping DOH regulation by naming their ER something else (urgent care centers?) And in one health facility being filled up for medical tourism the rates for rentals are high and unbelievable, and with those costs the rest of the rates in the country are affected.
I said something must be done about this. To address this, since I can not put up low cost hospitals
1. I created a blog which has a rather large number of page views. Cheapcures This is about preventive medicine, other points of view about Western Medicine. and various diseases like heart disease, cancer , GERD, how they can be prevented and treated cheap. There are features on food, nutrition, herbal medicine, and exercise
2. I talked to various health professionals who are students on MBA on how we can address the escalating health care costs:
