Melanie Santillan

Melanie Santillan is a pharmacist and a licensed physician, board-certified in Pediatric Medicine. She has a background in clinical epidemiology and public management development. In the early 2000s, she joined the Quality Assurance Department of PhilHealth, where she focused on health technology assessment, clinical practice guidelines, standards development for quality improvement in healthcare, and projects that studied healthcare providers' practices and prescribing behaviors. With over 20 years of experience in the National Health Insurance Program, Mel has spearheaded the building block initiatives for developing and costing benefit packages for catastrophic conditions and negotiation and contracting processes. Currently, her work centers on health systems management focused on healthcare financing, leading efforts to expand PhilHealth's coverage for high-burden and catastrophic conditions to improve financial risk protection and achieve universal health coverage.