BUTUAN CITY (November 13) — PhilHealth has secured a commitment from healthcare facilities across the Caraga Region to strengthen the implementation of its No Balance Billing (NBB) policy, but the bigger test remains whether patients can actually leave public hospitals without paying out of pocket for covered services.
The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), through its regional office, signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with participating medical facilities on Thursday to improve access to healthcare benefits and ensure that members and beneficiaries receive the services covered by the national health insurance program.
PhilHealth Acting President and Chief Executive Officer Beverly Lorraine Ho and PhilHealth-13 Regional Vice President Michael Jibson Hernandez led the signing with hospital officials.
Ho emphasized that PhilHealth benefits would remain meaningless on paper without healthcare providers delivering them to patients.
“Thank you to our health care providers because our benefits will continue to be benefits on paper if you are not there to deliver our services to our patients,” she said.
She cited improvements in benefit coverage and the speed of payments to healthcare providers over the past three years, but stressed that the next challenge is making Universal Health Care (UHC) more tangible to patients.
“Our health care providers felt the Universal Health Care (UHC). The challenge for us now is to ensure that the UHC services are translated and felt by our patients,” Ho said.
For patients, particularly low-income families, the effectiveness of the NBB policy is measured not by the signing of agreements or the amount of PhilHealth reimbursements but by whether they are spared additional hospital bills for covered services.
Hernandez presented the regional office’s accomplishments under PhilHealth’s five program pillars: healthy schools, workplaces and communities; a functional primary care system; quality and efficient hospitals; information technology transformation; and strong institutions and the health sector.
As of September 2026, PhilHealth-13 had released P5.05 billion in inpatient benefit payments to 51 accredited healthcare facilities across Caraga.
Hernandez said the amount was 124 percent higher than the P4.05 billion in inpatient benefit payments recorded in September 2025.
The 51 facilities have a combined capacity of 2,275 beds, providing the region with a network of hospitals participating in PhilHealth’s benefit programs.
Under the Guaranteed Accessible Medications for Outpatient Treatment (GAMOT) program, the regional office also recorded P21.7 million in benefit utilization, with 107 facilities registered across Caraga.
Representatives of the Department of Health, Department of Education and Department of Labor and Employment witnessed the agreement signing, along with Butuan City officials led by Mayor Lawrence Lemuel Fortun.
The real measure of the agreement, however, will be its implementation at hospital billing counters: whether eligible patients receive covered services without being charged additional amounts that the No Balance Billing policy is intended to prevent.
