Latest in Edwin MercadoPublic health expert Dr. Tony Leachon is urging Health Secretary Edwin Mercado to implement a real-time medicine tracking and deployment system, coordinate with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to audit the quality of procured drugs, and publicly demand accountability from officials…
The Marcos administration’s Department of Health has set concrete health outcome targets it must achieve by 2028: lower stunting rates among Filipino children, higher immunization rates, reduced tuberculosis cases, contained HIV infections, and a shift toward healthier lifestyles to address rising…
Health Secretary Edwin Mercado said the Department of Health (DOH) will create a separate dedicated cluster for hospital operations, removing it from the Center for Health Development regional offices that currently oversee both hospitals and primary care programs. Mercado stressed this necessary…
Eight out of ten pharmacies accredited under PhilHealth’s Gamot medicine program are private businesses rather than government pharmacies—a deliberate design choice driven by the recognition that private pharmacies have the supply chain expertise to ensure medicines are reliably available when…
Local government units can now use the Special Health Fund—the pool of PhilHealth payments they receive for health services—to hire doctors, nurses, and other medical workers, a critical new provision that Health Secretary Edwin Mercado said Saturday will help address the country’s chronic…
The Marcos administration has built more than 100 specialty centers for cardiac, cancer, stroke, trauma, burn, and brain care—all co-located inside existing hospitals rather than built as standalone facilities—expanding access to specialized medical care across the country without requiring the…
PhilHealth President and CEO Beverly Ho said Saturday that the clearest measure of success for the health sector by the end of the Marcos administration in 2028 is simple: no Filipino should fear entering a hospital because they do not know how much it will cost them. Ho made the statement in an…
The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) has expanded its GAMOT medicine program from the original 21 medicines under the Konsulta program to 75 total, after adding 54 new medicines last year under the leadership of then-PhilHealth President and CEO Edwin Mercado, now the Secretary…
The Department of Health (DOH) will use telemedicine and roving health teams rather than fixed clinics to bring healthcare to geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas, acknowledging that brick-and-mortar health facilities are not always feasible in island communities and remote barangays…
The Gamot program launched by PhilHealth under the leadership of then-President and CEO Edwin Mercado has ended the common practice of patients with chronic conditions buying only three days’ worth of maintenance medicines at a time because they could not afford a full month’s supply, PhilHealth…
The number of Yakap primary care clinics has surged from just 119 before the Marcos administration to more than 4,000 today, with the program now reaching 96% of all Philippine cities and municipalities, newly appointed Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) President and CEO Beverly…
The Philippines faces a unique triple burden of disease that requires the health system to simultaneously address lifestyle illnesses, lingering infectious diseases, and modern-society conditions including mental health problems, newly appointed Health Secretary Edwin Mercado said Saturday.…
Newly appointed Health Secretary Edwin Mercado revealed Saturday that the Department of Health (DOH) and Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) will no longer operate as two separate agencies but will merge their roadmaps under a single Unified National Agenda for Health, or UNA…
Tuberculosis cases in the Philippines are rebounding after years of decline, with multi-drug resistant and extensively drug-resistant strains on the rise—a trend the country’s top health insurer attributes largely to patients failing to complete their treatment despite medicines being provided for…
PhilHealth is sounding the alarm on the long-term sustainability of its benefit expansion program, with its president and chief executive officer warning that the current pace of growth in benefit costs cannot be maintained beyond 2026 without a fundamental shift in how the country’s health…
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