DRH eyes P350M revenue in 2012

THE MULTI-AWARDED government-operated Davao Regional Hospital in Apokon, Tagum City is targeting an income of P350 million by the end of this year, showing an increase of P65-million, or 18-percent, compared to last year’s.
Hospital administrator Carlito U. Pillerin told members of the Rotary Club of East Davao in a recent speech at The Marco Polo Davao that in order to achieve the target, the hospital will have to adopt and develop a software for its information system that will monitor its patients as well as employees.
Pillerin said the 200-bed hospital was able to make money mainly from payment of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. for members admitted to the hospital. Because of this, the DRH has been adjudged among the most improved government health facilities in the country.
With the enrolment of indigents in the government health insurance system, Pillerin said the hospital’s income will increase tremendously. Before the enrolment of indigents in PhilHealth, he said, about half of the supposed income of the hospital was written off annually because the patients could not afford to pay.
Once the indigents are covered by PhilHealth, the government also earns from them because Philhealth pays for their hospitalization, he said.
The hospital gets about P33 million annually from the national government as its budget for operations and maintenance. However, Pillerin said, the budget is so small, that the money is “only enough for hiring of contractual workers.”
He said the hospital’s income is enough to run it and provide better services to its clients. Last year, it served some 31,000 patients.
The information system, he pointed out, will monitor the movement of employees as well as patients. An average of two patients a month leave the hospital without being noticed by management.
The information system will also instill discipline among employees who will be monitored if they sneak out of the facility, Pillerin added. “That will mean an increase in their productivity,” he told the Rotary club headed by Florante Santiago, a ranking regional official of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) based in Davao City.
The hospital is one of the tertiary hospitals in the country that the government-run health insurance company has identified as capable of offering specialized benefits for patients with life-threatening illnesses.
Pillerin said this would also help the hospital achieve its target. Under the Z benefits, patients with catastrophic illnesses can avail of special packages like P210,000 for acute lymphocytic leukemia, P100,000 for breast cancer, P100,000 for prostate cancer; and P600,000 for kidney transplant.
On kidney transplant, the 2007-2011 Transplant Census Report of the Philippine Renal Disease Registry identified the Davao Regional Hospital as the best among the 13 hospitals offering the service outside of Metro Manila.
Among all hospitals in the country, the DRH is reportedly number eight in terms of efficiency in kidney transplant.
In the Davao region, the DRH, the Southern Philippines Medical Center and the Davao Doctors Hospital were identified in the report as offering the treatment.
Early this year, the regional hospital opened its Cancer Center which has a state-of-the-art linear accelerator, a machine used in killing cancer cells.