The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) is set to further increase its benefits coverage, driven by its robust financial health.
PhilHealth President and CEO Emmanuel Ledesma Jr. announced plans to implement a 30 to 50 percent increase in benefit coverage across all its benefit packages by November.
This follows a 30 percent increase implemented in February 2024. PhilHealth also aims to offer benefit packages for the top 10 most burdensome diseases in the country, including pneumonia, severe dengue, acute stroke, chronic kidney disease, asthma, sepsis, ischemic heart disease, cataract, and cancers of the lung, liver, ovary, and prostate. Currently, PhilHealth covers 60 percent of these conditions.
Ledesma emphasized that PhilHealth's strong financial standing allows for significant reductions in out-of-pocket expenses for Filipinos. "One of the reasons why we are aggressively enhancing the case packages is because PhilHealth has ample funds," he said.
Ledesma added that there have been fewer benefit claims during the COVID-19 pandemic while premium contributions continued to increase as mandated by the Universal Health Care Law. As of September 30, 2024, PhilHealth's investments have reached P512 billion, with over P9 billion remitted by the national government. Payouts for case packages have reached P120 billion this year.
The Supreme Court en banc has scheduled oral arguments on January 14, 2025, on the transfer of P89.9 billion PhilHealth funds to the National Treasury, following legal challenges.
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