THE Department of Health (DOH) clarified over the weekend that the projected retained income for 2021 of its 98 implementing units is P16.9 billion, and not P448 billion as previously reported to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM). The DOH also clarified it projects expenditure at P16.7 billion.
During the Senate budget briefing last October 13, health officials initially explained that the unusually-high amount of retained income stemmed from an encoding error in the projected receipts and expenditures of Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center. DOH representatives said the absolute amount was encoded without adjusting to thousandths, resulting in a bloated amount. The DOH has also submitted the corrected figures to the DBM.
DOH officials added that the medical expenses of indigent patients are covered by multiple sources of funding such as Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth). These patients also receive other medical assistance provided by government.
Apart from PhilHealth reimbursements, DOH hospitals and other health facilities also generate income from hospital fees, drugs and medicines and other sources of revenue generated through its operations.
Section 2 of the Special Provision of the DOH under the General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 2021 provides guidance on the use of these funds, according to a statement from the DOH issued last Sunday.
According to the statement, all health facilities must use this income to augment the capital outlay and maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) requirements to deliver health services to patients.
âThese funds, however, cannot be used for the payment of salaries, allowances, and other benefits,â the DOH statement read.
Covid cases
MEANWHILE, the DOH logged 6,913 additional Covid-19 cases on Sunday, bringing the total number of infections to 2,720,368. There were 10,237 recoveries and 95 deaths.
Of the total number of cases, 95.5 percent (2,598,052) have recovered and 1.5 percent (40,675) have died.
Fifty-four duplicates were removed from the total case count. Of these, 35 are recoveries.
Moreover, 31 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.
All laboratories were operational on October 15 but three laboratories were unable to submit their data to the Covid-19 document repository system.
Based on data in the last 14 days, these non-reporting laboratories contribute, on average, 0.5 percent of samples tested and 0.5 percent of positive individuals.