Mayor pushes amendment to BacCHP in providing health assistance

By Glazyl Y. Masculino

BACOLOD City – Mayor Alfredo “Albee” Benitez said that he will be sending a request to the City Council to allow them to be more flexible in addressing concerns about the Bacolod City Comprehensive Health Program (BacCHP) ordinance.

In a press briefing Monday, Benitez said that currently, the assistance allowed to a BacCHP cardholder beneficiary only reaches a maximum of P15,000 in hospitals.

“If more than P15,000 ang bill mo, ang BacCHP indi ma usar (If your bill is more than P15,000, you cannot avail of the BacCHP). That’s why I’ll ask the City Council to amend this provision because it’s limiting us to only serve those with P15,000 (hospital bill),” he added.

Benitez said that most cases are those with beyond P15,000 (hospital bill). Thus, he said the city is using financial assistance from other programs to pay the hospitals.

“Indi ma usar ang BacCHP because of the P15,000 cap based on the ordinance “ he added.

Mae Cuaycong, assistant department head of the City Planning and Development Office (CPDO), said that they have served more than 900 patients since May 1 across all hospitals here.

Currently, the city has partnered with South Bacolod General Hospital, Bacolod Queen of Mercy Hospital, Riverside Medical Center, Bacolod Adventist Medical Center, and Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital for the BacCHP program.

Cuaycong said the city has released BacCHP cards to a total of 28,000 indigent families here.

Based on their databank, 80,000 families have been encoded in the system, but since they have difficulty in providing their Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) Identification (ID) number, the city could not print and distribute their cards, according to Cuaycong.

With this development, Benitez urged the CPDO to expedite the release of the BacCHP cards to enable more beneficiaries to avail of the program.

Benitez instructed them to coordinate with PhilHealth for the ID numbers and validation so that they can print the cards, as he urged them to distribute 50,000 BacCHP cards by this month.

The BacCHP ordinance authored by Councilor Claudio Jesus Raymund Puentevella, chairman of the Committee on Health, serves as a priority flagship program of the city that aims to maximize government resources for the implementation of an adequate and responsive healthcare system.

An P80-million fund was allocated for its initial implementation, which shall support the implementation of an annual health check-up and regular distribution of free maintenance medicines in conjunction with the City Health Office (CHO) through the preventive program of PhilHealth.

It also aims to optimize the service of private healthcare facilities for preventive and curative healthcare for all its members and ensure sufficient administrative support to facilitate the delivery of healthcare services, facility enhancement and services in existing primary healthcare stations in each barangay.

The program is exclusive to Bacolod City residents who have been residents in the city for at least one year, members of PhilHealth as principal or dependent with updated premium payments, and have submitted requirements requested by the BacCHP Operations Center shall be qualified to receive benefits under the program.

This program shall endeavor to secure and utilize all available government resources for healthcare to eliminate out-of-pocket expenses for all its members.