City to collaborate with DOH, PhilHealth for integration of city-wide health system

TO provide effective and efficient health care services to constituents, the 19th City Council during its regular session presided over by Vice Mayor Raineir Joaquin V. Uy authorized City Mayor Oscar Moreno to enter and sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Department of Health (DOH) and with the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth).

This covers the collaboration of the parties’ commitments in the Integration of the city-wide health system consistent with the provisions of Republic Act 11223, also known as the Universal Health Care (UHC) Act.

In his letter to the City Council, Mayor Moreno said the intention of the MOU is to give realization to the policy of the state provided under the law, to create a health care system in the local government unit capable of providing its residents effective services for seamless, high quality, and affordable health care.

The collaboration also seeks to address health system fragmentation and to reorient the health system towards primary health care, primarily through the integration of local health systems into a city-wide health system, said Mayor Moreno.

Under the MOU, the DOH shall provide or facilitate the provision of necessary support and incentives to assist the city in integrating its health system where applicable, that is resilient, sustainable and responsive to the needs of the population.

The DOH shall also advocate for the issuance of local executive policies or legislative enactments necessary for the integration of the city’s health system, and monitor the city’s implementation of activities for integration.

PhilHealth shall provide adequate financing to enable the city to provide individual-based interventions to their catchment population through the avenues enumerated in Section 18 of UHC Act and in MOU, in consonance with PhilHealth Policy, and monitor and enforce health care quality through contract with the health care provider networks in the health system.

For its part, the city shall commit to establish an improved and more robust governance structure and arrangement, among others, as provided for in the MOU.