PCSO defends charity budget allocation modification

By Jel Santos

Subsequent to the complaints from patients at the Lung Center, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) has defended the modification of its medical assistance services as “overutilization of funds.”

(MANILA BULLETIN)

Larry Cedro, assistant general manager for Charity Sector, said the beneficiaries availing of financial support increased to nearly 30 percent in the first semester this year.

“The Budget Department has called the attention of CAD with regard to its fund utilization for the year. The Individual Medical Assistance Program (IMAP) already exceeded its utilization by more than P500 million. This is attributed to a marked increase in the number of beneficiaries availing of financial support from the agency by 27.93 percent for the first semester of 2018 compared to its 2017 data of the same period. This is compounded further by the rising cost in healthcare treatment,” Credo said.

He also noted that CAD needed to take necessary measures in order to prevent overspending.

“If CAD will not change the manner by which it provides medical assistance, this would result to overspending again and will be a major concern, particularly with Commission on Audit which reviews fund utilization and program implementation by the agency,” he said.

According to Credo, to address the overutilization, the agency has modified the case rates for hospitalization with an end view of establishing control in providing financial support to individuals.

Board Resolution No. 0256 Series 2018 permitted the suspension of the classification system of IMAP case rate in providing assistance for client-patients.

The current daily allocation for IMAP is P4.1 million which resulted in the reduction of the number of applications the PCSO may accept and process.

“You have probably received complaints about it, but we need to do this or else we will go back to the issue of ‘overutilization.’ As a general rule, you only operate within your budget. Simply put, we can only give what we have,” stressed Cedro.

Meanwhile, Cedro admitted that some sectors of society especially senior citizens, persons with disability, among others, were affected by these changes and efforts are being done to address the matter.

“We are asking for everyone’s understanding and cooperation. This is only temporary and the management is doing everything in order to address the issue,” he appealed.