PhilHealth Watch 11: Hospital Bill Deductions (b)

The son of a staff of my sister's accounting firm was hospitalized last December. The patient, 2 years old Joziah Enzo Villante Villacillo (the mother, Gerlie, gave me permission to give her son's name) was rushed to the hospital ER due to high fever and flu.

The patient was later confined at the UHBI-Paranaque Doctor's Hospital last December 26, 2011. They stayed in the ward, 4 beds in a room, P650 per day per patient. After 1 1/2 days of confinement, the boy's condition has improved and was discharged. Here is their total bill.

	Actual charges	PhilHealth coverage	Due from patient
Hospital Charges
Laboratory	1568	500	968
Central supplies	1069	500	569
Room accommodation	975	500	475
Medicine	610	210	400
Emergency room	490		490
Sub-Total	4,712	1,810	2,902
Professional Fee (PF) pedia	3,600	500	3,100
Total, Pesos	6,312	2,310	4,002

Here, PhilHealth shouldered 36.6 percent or more than 1/3 of the total bill. The PF of the attending pediatrician bloated the patient's bill, PhilHealth paid only P500 out of the P3,600 PF. Since PhilHealth pays P500 per day for the specialists, they should have paid 2 days or P1,000 instead of P500, in order to reduce the costs to the patient's family.

The patient's mother, the PhilHealth member, is paying P300 per month (P150 employer, P150 employee) to PhilHealth or P3,600 per year.

In my case when my daughter was also hospitalized in Iloilo Mission Hospital also last December, PhilHealth shouldered 46 percent of the total bill. PhilHealth did not contribute to the PF's P2,400 charge, see my notes, PhilHealth Watch 10: Hospital Bill Deductions, December 24, 2011.

Moving away from PhilHealth, check the share of medicines to the total bill: P610 / P6,312 = 9.7 percent. This belies again the common notion that "drugs and medicines are the single biggest cost to hospitalization and healthcare." In my daughter's hospitalization, drugs and medicines comprised 26 percent of the total bill. The bigger items, as usual, are the PF and the hospital room, especially if one will stay in a private room, not the ward.
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See also:
PhilHealth Watch 8: Alternatives to PhilSick Monopoly, October 13, 2011
PhilHealth Watch 9: Physicians talk about PHIC, October 16, 2011