PhilHealth- 8 field offices get ‘Excellent’ rating for Anti-Red Tape Act compliance

TACLOBAN CITY, Feb. 12 (PNA) -– The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) is stepping up the delivery of frontline services this year to sustain gains achieved for complying the Anti-Red Tape Act (ARTA) last year.

PhilHealth Eastern Visayas Regional Vice President Walter Bacareza said that in 2015, the region’s nine field offices attained a rating of 91.54 percent or two percent up than the 89.35 percent rating recorded in 2014.

“Four of our offices in Eastern Visayas were recognized rated as Excellent. Our office in Calbayog City in Samar was given the highest rating in the country by the Civil Service Commission (CSC),” Bacareza said.

Only the offices in Catarman, Northern Samar and Naval, Biliran failed to meet the 90 percent excellent rating last year. The Catarman office did not implement the “no lunch break” policy while the Naval office had no collection of insurance premiums.

“We are going to strengthen what we have done before through regular evaluation of performance of each PhilHealth staff. We have to make sure that their individual commitment is aligned to the regional commitments,” Bacareza added. 

The PhilHealth has 236 staff in the region assigned at the regional office and field offices in Calbayog, Catbalogan, Ormoc, Baybay, Maasin, Borongan, Tacloban, Catarman, and Naval.

The 2015 ARTA Report Card Survey (RCS) was conducted in nine government agencies with frontline service transactions based on the reports lodged by the public through the Contact Center ng Bayan, a call center facility managed by the CSC.

Since the implementation of the ARTA, government agencies have installed various mechanisms to reduce red tape and exhibit customer-driven response to efficiently deliver public service.

The CSC closely monitors these acts of curbing red tape through the ARTA RCS, an instrument used to check agency compliance with the ARTA provisions, and to gauge citizens’ satisfaction with the quality of government services.

Agencies rated as ‘Excellent’ in the RCS (has obtained numerical rating from 90 to 100), are awarded the CSC Seal of Excellence.

Seal of Excellence awardees receive a plaque of citation and cash prize of PHP100,000 from the CSC, which the agencies can utilize for further improvement of their frontline service delivery. (PNA)

FFC/PGL/SARWELL Q. MENIANO