Thursday, February 6, 2025

Healthcare Access Becomes Impossible for the Ordinary

No Insurance, Low Priority Feels in Hospitals for the Sick and the Well-Insured.

RESTRICTIONS and "categorizing" patients as insured or non-insured, now more than ever.

It is a far-flung idea that kids would get equal treatment for basic hospital services, when across  the South Metro, kids are simply worrying about how to survive hunger in the city.

                                                                                                                                                            

As if the ordeal of the ordinary Filipino is NOT enough.

                                                                                                                                                            


We cannot miss it as patrons of  tertiary hospitals without the loud budget  for publicity or advertising-- that 

there have  been pretty rounds of changes in the quiet hospitals down south that my quaint media friends have been missing out on drumming up.


Restrictions, restrictions.  Or probably, a classification of the haves and the haves not.  Cam phobes and the cam newbies.


One, any kind of videoshooting or photo taking are strictly disallowed, or shall we say discouraged, however way hospitals are now fronting the warnings in their lobby and major seen zones.


But that's not really an issue for privacy loving citizens here in our home country, land of the nurses and medical practitioners.


The noticeable change is the increase in hospital charges for basic services, that could turn away patients who need treatment the most, the ones who need immediate treatment,  not just the walk ins for a clinic visit.


Also, allow me to point out a repeated reality for hospital customers:  


How come patients or customers have to mind their insurance, these changing times, with the insurance brand,  like a password to be spoken for that privilege  entry to the ER zone thereby separating the insured from the cash payors, and insinuating a need for status without really frank telling it?


Hope for all mercies, in ER this has been a customary question, but now it's like a salt being rubbed on wound of customers who have long been emburdened with the high costs of medicines and tests during the Covid pandemic.   It seems like there is no relief no surrender when it comes to ensuring profits ei?


Made to feel poor, ostracized even more in a surge of stiffening hospital rates in private hospitals, are customers supposed to gulp in these realities now that a number of hospitals are posturing "class A" status in imaging and brand building?


About a decade throwback, one can comfortably walk in with just less than a thousand cash on one's pocket just to avail the usual services in hospitals. The ER initial treatment included.  


Now, one would be found  in shameless, helpless situation if a customer walks in with just a USD 100 bucks of cash (you get it right it feels like American dollars in rates already), with the swooping high charges billeted by hospitals right now in the face of customer relapse to a lifestyle of luxe, where only the insured gets to be prioritized.


In truth, many ordinary customers do have insurance; but these are not often honored in tertiary hospitals, like those micro-insurance that are being promoted online in many e-commerce sites.


Soft spokenly, micro-insurances for health coverages DO NOT get the dignity of acceptance from hospitals, as some claim these micro- insurances do not actually pay when the charges are beyond the limits appropriated. 


Yet also some get declined for specific cases, while, in truth, micro insurances which most moms and local workers can afford do get a frown down from health professionals as these show status or low financial capacity already.


Are hospitals on the right track for lifting up the reputation of their brands by securing only acceptance of big insurance companies as they continue to improve and revamp their looks and amenities?


There is an obvious agitation of hospital patients and their families, when there is an obvious posturing of status in hospital services, 
when patients are accepted for treatments  based on whether one is insured or not. 

 

The high costs of services of private hospitals, and half-heartedness to entertain non-insured patients, are still as worse, as demanding hospital deposits prior to being admitted.

NRP February 06 2025.
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