PhilCare targets 30% growth in revenues for 2012

MANILA, Philippines - PhilhealthCare Inc. (PhilCare), the health management organization (HMO) company of the Philippines First Group of Companies, is looking at a 20- to 30-percent growth in revenues for 2012.

An HMO is a financial company that offers and coordinates a health care delivery system. It is combines both the financing and delivery of health care for enrollees or planholders.

At the end of November this year, revenues stood at P1.2 billion or just a few millions of pesos from its full year target of P1.3 billion. Or 30-percent higher than the P996 million recorded in 2010.

 “We are on track,” Jaeger L. Tanco, executive vice president and chief operating officer of PhilCare, said.

The planholder base is likewise targeted to expand to 250,000 next year from the present 220,000. Ninety-percent of planholders are actually part of Philcare’s 1,000 corporate accounts.

Corporate accounts are companies that tap HMO’s such as PhilCare to give its employees health benefits as part of its corporate responsibility.

On the other side of the coin, Tanco would like its agency force to expand from the present 500 to 800. “They are all in-house trained to understand the industry, PhilCare and its products,” he pointed out.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Health (DOH) loosely regulate the HMO industry.

Thus there are no rules regarding the type of training and expertise required for the agency force, unlike the country’s insurance industry that follow strict regulations regarding training, course content, and licensing.

The Insurance Commission is the regulator of the country’s insurance industry, and lately, the pre-need industry.

The 30-year-old PhilCare will expand its affiliate hospital base to 700 next year from its present 500, as well as increase its doctor partners to 15,000.

Tanco however stressed that they do not randomly recruit affiliate hospitals or doctors, as they follow strict in-house standards. He said that Philcare is ranked fourth best among the 30 or so HMOs in the country, and they would want to keep its record unblemished by maintaining high standards with its partners.

PhilCare also expressed concerns of the HMO industry with the increasing “medical inflation” or the increasing costs of medical services, as well as new PhilHealth regulations.

Such conditions are forcing some of HMOs to increase premiums while others have absorbed the costs.

 Unscrupulous doctors and hospitals are also reportedly abusing HMO services. One example given is that hospital or doctors undertake services well beyond the need of a patient. “They (hospitals) know that we will pay for the service even if it excessive or beyond the need of the patient,” HMOs said.