Meron ba tayo nyan? cheeseburger!

The Philippine Healthcare System is a big joke! Philippine ray tinuod ani, kay wa man tay HEALTHCARE, labaw pang wa tay SYSTEM! (Translation: Philippine is the only true thing in the statement, we have no HEALTHCARE to speak of, much more SYSTEM!)

Dr. Merricherri is encouraging us to have a no holds barred post. This topic had already made a deep and ugly cut, close to gangrene, among medical practitioners, so she doesn't even have to encouraged us. We are already seething with frustration and vexations.

In particular, I will rant (rant daw oh!, cheeseburger!) on the present brouhaha over the social insurance of our beloved republic and cataract surgeries. A hot topic for every eye doctor who cares.

It is so unfair for all of us eyemd's to be dumped into one basket with the rotten eggs. I felt that we were being persecuted, judged and being bludgeoned, even if we have not make a violation of their circulars. Us, the new graduates have felt the mega shocks of the rotten egg's actions, the collateral damage of greed and avarice.

Is it our fault that we can easily do many surgeries in a day? Is it our sin that cataract surgical steps have been overly simplified ? and that advances in technology has been good to us ?

Are we being unethical if we do cataracts without co-pay?

Patients talk and they have their own language.

Our group practice doesn't cater to the above average economic strata, the big eye centers in the neighboring city had already captured that niche. We are left with their crumbs and our clinic mostly received the minimum wage earner patients; the middle class, seldom strays in our door. These type of patients have bet all their hopes in their social insurance benefits. Arangan man sad kung dili nimo operahan kung dili ka c0-pay, bisag kinahanglan na jud sila nga operahan, ka dakung sala niana sa Diyos. (in english: Its a great sin against the Lord if you will not operate on this patients just because they cannot co-pay,even if they really need the surgery.english yan, cheeseburger ulit!) Whatever skills you have right now, you owe it to the Lord. Pay the Lord forward. People wanted to see the colors of God's creation again. Ug kinsa ka man nga mu-pugong?. (trans: and who are you to stop this?) We'd rather keep our conscience.

Let me clarify, we don't do any recruitments, missions or paying social insurance memberships for patients. We don't hire any cataract seekers in any form. We don't even have a panaflex sign outside the hospital. We only have our commitment to serve and the goal to earn an honest living for our family. You may raised eyebrows here, but it doesn't matter, we know ourselves better. Or yet, were still wet in the ears and is ignorant of the ways of the world.

We, at the eye clinic are all newbies, we graduated the same year and we all live in the same city. So instead of having separate clinics , we decided to unite our resources in establishing a fairly presentable and the only EYE CLINIC in the only decent hospital in the city. Mind you, we come from the different training centers in the island, but during our training we never felt any animosity towards each other even if our own training centers are in stiff competition.

And now, eye mds are being limited on the number of pxs we can claim citing that the volume of our surgeries can deplete their resources. For those fraudulent claims, there is no question that it should be denied outright and even reprimanded but what about us, who consciously follow the rules?

For every 10 insured members, only 2 will claim for their sickness for that year, that's how insurance works, right? To put it simply, you are counting on those members who are not sick to pay for those who got sick and difference is your profit. And membership is mandated, so wala kang lusot. And not everyone will get sick at the same time.

Even for those Family Card they are giving, the politicians paid millions for the membership fees advanced for 1 year. A politician friend made a non official survey of the cards that they distributed, he found out that not even 20% was used by his constituents. And almost all politicians in the archipelago have distributed this family card, motives considered.

But as one executive said, they are only giving us the privilege to be accredited to their insurance company. Short of saying, if you don't like us, the door is open.

And this sucks, bigtime!

Philippine Healthcare System. Meron ba tayo nyan?