What the Case Log Needs to Hold
A surgeon running a private practice and operating theater schedule in the Philippines will see cases across at least three payer categories simultaneously: private pay, HMO-covered (Intellicare, Maxicare, Medicard, Philcare, Medasia, Lacson and Lacson, Avega), and no-charge cases (NC). Each payer category has different documentation requirements, different professional fee schedules, and different reimbursement timelines. Managing all three from memory, or from a general-purpose contact app, means the case documentation that drives professional fee collection is the weakest link in the practice.
The Patient Identification Number (PIN) is the administrative anchor that connects this mobile record to the hospital system. Every other field in the record builds outward from that number.
Preop Diagnosis Versus Postop Diagnosis as a Data Point
The presence of both Preop Dx and Postop Dx fields is not redundancy — it is clinical and administrative documentation of what changed between the initial assessment and the operative finding. A patient presenting with suspected appendicitis (Preop Dx) who shows a perforated appendix with localized peritonitis (Postop Dx) has a materially different surgical encounter than one where the appendix was non-perforated. That difference determines the procedure billed, the professional fee justified to the HMO, and the post-discharge care plan.
Intraoperative Findings as a separate field captures what was actually observed during the procedure, which may differ from both the preoperative assessment and the final postoperative diagnosis. A surgeon who found unexpected adhesions from a prior operation, or an incidental finding of an ovarian cyst during appendectomy, needs to document that finding separately from the primary diagnosis chain. The Specimen image field captures the pathological specimen visually — which is the documentation that supports histological correlation and protects the surgeon if the post-operative pathology report comes back with findings inconsistent with the operative note.
Plan and Findings as distinct fields capture the clinical decision narrative: Findings is what was observed, Plan is what was decided in response to those findings. These two fields together constitute the operative note summary that the case record is built around.
HMO Documentation as a Practice Management Tool
The HMO multichoice field with seven Philippine insurance providers is the payer classification field that routes the professional fee (PF) documentation. Private cases have one billing process. Intellicare cases have a different authorization and reimbursement workflow than Maxicare, which differs again from Medicard. A surgeon who sees thirty cases per month across five HMOs without a systematic record of which payer covers which patient will have systematic billing gaps.
The PF (professional fee) field as free text handles the range of fee structures across payer types — percentage of professional fee allowed, fixed schedule amounts, premium tier rates — without forcing a currency field that would need to be updated as schedules change.
Status — Discharged, Expired, Recovered — closes the clinical record at the episode level. Discharged and Recovered are distinct: a patient can be discharged from the hospital without being fully recovered, and the distinction matters for follow-up scheduling and outcome documentation. The Card boolean and Discharged boolean operate as a two-step administrative closure: Card flags whether the patient's clinical card has been completed and filed; Discharged confirms the physical discharge has occurred.
Consultation to OR Date as Timeline Data
Consultation Date and OR Date together capture the consultation-to-surgery interval — which is an individual practice quality metric and a healthcare system access metric. A patient who consults on a Tuesday and is in the OR on Thursday had rapid access to surgical intervention. A patient who consults and waits six weeks for an OR date was navigating a capacity constraint, whether in scheduling, authorization, or bed availability. The interval is in the record without any calculation required.
Referring Consultant tracks the source of the referral chain, which matters for both professional courtesy and for understanding where the practice's case volume is originating. A surgical practice that receives twenty percent of its cases from a single referring internist has a referral concentration risk that is only visible if the referring consultant is documented per case.