BIR Revenue Regulation 14-2013 exploded like a bombshell, and physicians were stunned to hear that after they perform life-saving operations or reverse the dying process of a stroke or a heart attack, they are now forbidden to receive professional fees (PFs) directly from their patients. It should be the hospital which will collect the PF, hold it for the Bureau of Internal Revenue and deduct 10-15 percent from it before releasing it to the doctors’
secretaries.
Doctors’ complaints do not rest so much on the delay of retrieving professional fees if it is to the interest of patients as on the manner with which the government is treating physicians—with distrust, as if our scruples were lower than those of the amoeba. Our civil liberties are being revoked dose by dose. Our professional rights are trampled with impunity, unlike in all civilized countries of the world where commitments to honor the noble role of physicians in nations’ healthcare are ever given due course.
The World Medical Association (WMA) considers the Philippines among its leading members. In fact, two Philippine Medical Association presidents served as presidents of the WMA in the past. Yet, in our own country physicians are maligned endlessly.
Looking back, physicians had better professional freedom during the martial law years. We were free to ply healthcare delivery even during curfew hours. We were treated with respect even by the military. Was this an indication that the Marcos regime placed a higher price on the doctors’ role in life and wellbeing than the current regime does? And is that why doctors’ contributions to nation-building are rated lower?
Exceptions to the law are the following: (1) when doctors treat their patients in the clinic; and (2) when doctors treat colleagues, and spouses and children of doctors or relatives. In the latter case, doctors do not charge professional fees for their services; however, there is a need to document the treatment in the form of a notarized affidavit that both the doctor and patient sign as proof of the free service.
As citizens, we understand the government’s obsession to squeeze dry our purses, especially the physicians’, in its drive for more resources. However, we hope that, in exercising this function, its faculties employ a more civilized fashion even against a prejudiced sector. The advice of Sir Winston Churchill may be taken in its context: “Even if you have to kill a man, it costs no more to be polite.” Doctors
deserve to be treated with more civility.
—SANTIAGO A. DEL ROSARIO, MD,
former president, Philippine Medical Association (PMA), commissioner,
PMA on Legislation,
Suite 210, Makati Medical Center