PhilHealth benefit payments seen to rise by P10 B

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) is expecting to post a P10-billion increase in benefit payments for members and their dependents this year.

PhilHealth president and chief executive officer Eduardo Banzon said the agency had already reimbursed some P32 billion in cumulative benefits from January to September 2012, higher by P8 billion or 33 percent from the P24 billion disbursed during the same period in 2011.

“We’re on track to delivering between P44-billion to P47-billion worth of benefits this year, or 30 percent greater than the P34 billion we paid in 2011,” he said.

Banzon said that PhilHealth had already paid almost P1 billion in benefit packages every week since August this year.

The increase was attributed to the huge increase in benefit payments and improved subsidies to multiple medical cases, plus expanded coverage as a result of more members and dependents enlisted.

This includes the increase in benefit package for “catastrophic aliments” hounding a growing number of Philhealth members and dependents – P600,000 for low-risk, end-stage renal disease requiring a kidney transplant; P210,000 for standard-risk childhood leukemia; P100,000 for early stage breast cancer; and P100,000 for low- to intermediate-risk prostate cancer.

PhilHealth also introduced an P11,000 case rate payment for leptospirosis and a P3,000-animal bite pack for rabies post-exposure prophylaxis.

These are on top of existing case rate payments for several medical conditions, including P38,000 for cerebro-vascular accident with hemorrhage; P32,000 for high-risk pneumonia; P28,000 for cerebral infraction; P16,000 for dengue hemorrhagic fever with presence of shock; P15,000 for moderate-risk pneumonia; P14,000 for typhoid fever; P9,000 for essential hypertension; P9,000 for asthma; P8,000 for dengue fever or simple DHF; and P6,000 for acute gastroenteritis.