Jakarta (ANTARA) - The National Healthcare and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) has allocated an additional Rp9 trillion in funds to anticipate any increase in financing needs due to the implementation of an early-stage disease screening program in 2023.
"With the early-stage screening, health costs will definitely increase," President Director of BPJS Kesehatan Ali Ghufron Mukti said at the “2023 Outlook: Discussion on 10 Years of the National Health Insurance (JKN) Program” here on Monday.
This year, more intensive programs related to medical history, diabetes mellitus (DM), cervical cancer, and breast cancer screening will be carried out, he added. Furthermore, he noted that the amount of funds collected from the participants of the agency’s JKN Program reached Rp144 trillion as of 2022, a significant jump compared to the amount in 2014, which was Rp40.7 trillion.
The increase in funds has also been accompanied by a surge in the number of members of the program, which is currently almost 250 million or about 90 percent of Indonesia's population, he added.
The number of utilizations of BPJS Kesehatan’s services has also continued to increase—from only 92.3 million in 2014 to 392 million in 2021 and 502 million in 2022. "It is equivalent to more than one million utilizations of BPJS Kesehatan services per day," Mukti noted.
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On the same occasion, Secretary General of the Health Ministry Kunta Wibawa Dasanugraha said that currently, BPJS Kesehatan services are relatively more affordable for the public. "I remember how people used to be very afraid to go to the hospital, because whether they are poor or in middle class, they tend to fall into poverty because they have to (spend a lot of money to) undergo treatment," he noted.
The spirit of mutual cooperation exhibited by JKN participants in paying the dues, which can provide health treatments, has succeeded in supporting the public to get health services, he said. He added that the increase in the use of BPJS Kesehatan services needs to be supported by an optimal implementation of the services, in line with the ministry’s Health Transformation Program, such as strengthening the health screening services.