PhilHealth expands maternity package

CEBU – The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) recently expanded coverage for the maternity care package which would now cover up to the fourth normal spontaneous delivery.

According to its Circular No. 20 Series of 2008, the expanded maternity package was one of the additional benefits launched before the end of the year.

The new maternity package, which was announced by PhilHealth in the last first week of October, applies to normal or uncomplicated deliveries and may be availed of at all PhilHealth-accredited hospitals and non-hospital facilities such as birthing homes, lying-in or midwife-managed clinics.

Normal delivery would mean low risk at the start and during labor and birth. It also indicates 37 to 42 weeks of completed pregnancy with the infant in vertex position.

But maternal age under 19 years old is exempted as well as first pregnancy of patients aging 35 above and placental abnormality. Such conditions are excluded in availing of the benefits in non-hospital facilities.

Before, PhilHealth pays only for the first to third normal spontaneous deliveries. But the package was expanded in response to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s call to further widen the scope of its services to all its members.

The expanded maternity package will take effect starting January 1, 2009.

Meanwhile, the agency announced that today is the deadline for payment of premium for the last quarter of 2008 for all Individually Paying Members (IPMs).

Earlier, PhilHealth called all IPMs to pay their premium early to beat the holiday rush or avoid long lines at payment centers nationwide.

PhilHealth stressed the importance of updated and timely remittance of premiums in ensuring the access to benefits.

Several medical procedures, according to PhilHealth, now require sufficient regularity of contributions, especially among IPMs.

The premium rate of IPMs is P300 payable quarterly, semi-annually or annually and entitles to various hospitalization benefits at accredited hospitals nationwide.

Employers are also reminded to remit the employees’ premium contributions and their counterpart amounts for the month of December 2008 not later than January 9, 2009.

The remittance reports must be submitted either in electronic or hard copy formats before January 15. — Jessica Ann R. Pareja/LPM (THE FREEMAN)