Financing Primary Care in the Philippines

The study assesses the state of primary care (PC) in the Philippines, considering outcomes and various sectoral inputs like financing, service delivery, and governance. Based on this assessment and adhering to established health financing principles, we made recommendations to address challenges. PC plays a leading role in the ongoing Universal Health Care reform in the Philippines, highlighting the importance of such assessments to inform policy and legislative agenda. Analyzing data from various sources and examining existing policies, we assessed the performance of PC in the country, benchmarking progress with regional and aspirational peers. Our findings suggest that health outcomes of Filipinos have improved over the years, but progress has been modest and marked with inequities and fast-changing disease patterns. These challenges result from various issues, including chronic underinvestment, challenges in financing arrangements, supply-side constraints such as limited capital investments and health human resources, and governance and organizational problems. We argue that addressing these challenges can be achieved by leveraging health financing strategies and reforms. Our recommendations revolve around refining the health financing system to better align incentives, allocate resources efficiently, and enhance governance and organizational structures.