PCSO cuts medical assistance budget

MANILA, Philippines — Thousands of beneficiaries are expected to be affected by the sudden reduction in the daily budget of the medical assistance program of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).

The daily budget for the Individual Medical Assistance Program (IMAP) was reduced to P4.1 million from about P20 million, PCSO deputy spokesperson Florante Solmerin told The STAR yesterday.

He said the reduction was due to the overutilization of medical assistance funds, which has reached over P4 billion as of July.

Larry Cedro, head of the PCSO charity assistance department (CAD), said the spending has already exceeded the IMAP budget by P500 million.

“The budget department has called the attention of CAD with regard to its fund utilization for the year,” he said in a statement.

“This is attributed to a marked increase in the number of beneficiaries availing of financial support from the agency by 27.93 percent for the first semester of 2018 compared to its 2017 data of the same period. This is compounded further by the rising cost in healthcare treatment,” he added.

Credo said they have to change the manner by which PCSO provides medical assistance as this may result in problems with the Commission on Audit.

Credo said they are working on addressing the problem, noting that some vulnerable sectors such as senior citizens and persons with disability are among those affected.