Philhealth disservice
THE Philippine Health Insurance Corp. is the best thing to have happened to the hospitalized: poor or not, needing all the discounts from the usually hefty medical bills and even heftier doctors’ fees.
The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. – its region 3 office at least – is the worst thing to have happened to a Philhealth card holder transacting business – to this writer at least.
Wednesday last week, the wife underwent D&C procedure – raspa for those unfamiliar with medical jargon – at the San Fernandino Hospital. As she would only stay overnight, the dutiful husband prepared all the papers required for her discharge in the morrow.
It was a learning process for the uninitiated me. The hospital’s Philhealth coordinator was all help. My presumption that the wife made an automatic dependent and need not be listed as one in my member data record (MDR) was all wrong. So what was I to do?
“Just attach your marriage contract” was the simple solution. Of course I had to attach too – to the bill of medical particulars – my last receipt of payment to Philhealth and my MDR.
So, early Thursday morning soon as the hospital billing office opened, I was first in line, dreading to miss the noontime cut and thereby adding one more day to my bill. There I was told I had to get a new MDR with the wife listed as dependent. So off I rushed to Philhealth.
Lucky me there was no one else before the table marked “Individually Paying/Self-Employed Members.” A grim face better suited to a funeral parlor than to a government service agency told me the xeroxed copy of our marriage contract would not do.
I said I could show her our original marriage contract which I brought with me for the eventuality that just happened.
Still no can do. Philhealth, she said, would only recognize a certified true copy of the original. This is one rare – and outrightly stupid – instance when a copy is given more weight than an original.
It would not take a carbon dater to determine the authenticity of our marriage certificate yellowed with age, frayed along the edges, and still bearing government stamps and the seal of that city judge in Iloilo City where we contracted our vows thirty years ago. Anyone with an IQ a notch above an idiot would know. Miss Philhealth would not.
So what was I to do? “Go to the National Statistics Office and get your certified true copy.”
But I was taking the wife out that morning. And the lines at the NSO purportedly took all day to process. Lady Morticia could not care less.
Phoning the wife of my predicament, she informed me that we had an NSO- authenticated copy kept among the kids’ birth certificates.
Soon as I got it, I rushed back to Philhealth. No one was seated at the table for individually paying members. I asked the guy at the next table where the sitter was.
“May ginagawa po” was the answer.
Scanning around, I saw Morticia chatting idly with two others of her kind around another employee’s table. After a full 10 minutes, she went back to her table to “serve” a couple with a young child. Soon after she disposed of them with a “Fill these forms then come back,” she hurried to what looked like a storeroom at the far side of that office.
It took her close to another 10 minutes to return. This time she seated herself by the table marked “Government Employees” or some such.
“Diyan ba kayo o dito?“ I asked pointing at the other table.
“Kahit saan” was her answer, her face enough to put all the sourness needed in a pot of paksiw.
So I gave her the NSO-certified true copy of our marriage contract.
“Pa-xerox mo,” she gave it back to me and shoved two forms for me to fill up.
So I got what I wanted. But should it be through such a tedious process?
My experience made a travesty of the standard of government service the Civil Service Commission set: Mamamayan Muna, Hindi Mamaya Na.
Frontliners in the government service should have human sensitivity and humane sensibility in dealing with their publics.
Philhealth bossman Tito Mendiola I have known since his OIC-Mayor days in Floridablanca as a committed public servant. He does not deserve a staffer like Morticia Addams. She is a great disservice to an institution that has service as its very reason for being.
(Access previous columns at acaesar.blogspot.com)
The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. – its region 3 office at least – is the worst thing to have happened to a Philhealth card holder transacting business – to this writer at least.
Wednesday last week, the wife underwent D&C procedure – raspa for those unfamiliar with medical jargon – at the San Fernandino Hospital. As she would only stay overnight, the dutiful husband prepared all the papers required for her discharge in the morrow.
It was a learning process for the uninitiated me. The hospital’s Philhealth coordinator was all help. My presumption that the wife made an automatic dependent and need not be listed as one in my member data record (MDR) was all wrong. So what was I to do?
“Just attach your marriage contract” was the simple solution. Of course I had to attach too – to the bill of medical particulars – my last receipt of payment to Philhealth and my MDR.
So, early Thursday morning soon as the hospital billing office opened, I was first in line, dreading to miss the noontime cut and thereby adding one more day to my bill. There I was told I had to get a new MDR with the wife listed as dependent. So off I rushed to Philhealth.
Lucky me there was no one else before the table marked “Individually Paying/Self-Employed Members.” A grim face better suited to a funeral parlor than to a government service agency told me the xeroxed copy of our marriage contract would not do.
I said I could show her our original marriage contract which I brought with me for the eventuality that just happened.
Still no can do. Philhealth, she said, would only recognize a certified true copy of the original. This is one rare – and outrightly stupid – instance when a copy is given more weight than an original.
It would not take a carbon dater to determine the authenticity of our marriage certificate yellowed with age, frayed along the edges, and still bearing government stamps and the seal of that city judge in Iloilo City where we contracted our vows thirty years ago. Anyone with an IQ a notch above an idiot would know. Miss Philhealth would not.
So what was I to do? “Go to the National Statistics Office and get your certified true copy.”
But I was taking the wife out that morning. And the lines at the NSO purportedly took all day to process. Lady Morticia could not care less.
Phoning the wife of my predicament, she informed me that we had an NSO- authenticated copy kept among the kids’ birth certificates.
Soon as I got it, I rushed back to Philhealth. No one was seated at the table for individually paying members. I asked the guy at the next table where the sitter was.
“May ginagawa po” was the answer.
Scanning around, I saw Morticia chatting idly with two others of her kind around another employee’s table. After a full 10 minutes, she went back to her table to “serve” a couple with a young child. Soon after she disposed of them with a “Fill these forms then come back,” she hurried to what looked like a storeroom at the far side of that office.
It took her close to another 10 minutes to return. This time she seated herself by the table marked “Government Employees” or some such.
“Diyan ba kayo o dito?“ I asked pointing at the other table.
“Kahit saan” was her answer, her face enough to put all the sourness needed in a pot of paksiw.
So I gave her the NSO-certified true copy of our marriage contract.
“Pa-xerox mo,” she gave it back to me and shoved two forms for me to fill up.
So I got what I wanted. But should it be through such a tedious process?
My experience made a travesty of the standard of government service the Civil Service Commission set: Mamamayan Muna, Hindi Mamaya Na.
Frontliners in the government service should have human sensitivity and humane sensibility in dealing with their publics.
Philhealth bossman Tito Mendiola I have known since his OIC-Mayor days in Floridablanca as a committed public servant. He does not deserve a staffer like Morticia Addams. She is a great disservice to an institution that has service as its very reason for being.
(Access previous columns at acaesar.blogspot.com)
posted by A.Caesar Z. Lacson at 10:50 AM
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