PhilHealth sets 35% increase in benefits

The chief executive of the state-owned health insurance company urged hospitals and doctors to keep their rates and fees down so that patients can enjoy the full impact of the 35-percent increase in benefits.

Dr. Rey Aquino, president of Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), cited the partnership between PhilHealth and accredited healthcare centers and professionals, as he issued his appeal to these “partners” to “place service above all other considerations.”

Aquino warned hospitals against increasing their room and other rates, and doctors raising their fees immediately after PhilHealth implemented a 35-percent increase in benefits for all its 76 million members nationwide.

Around the country, PhilHealth has accredited 1,531 hospitals, 1,217 rural health units, 28 free-standing dialysis clinics, 507 TB-DOTs centers, and 396 maternity clinics. It was noted that the larger part of these healthcare organizations’ revenues come from members’ benefit payments coursed through them by PhilHealth.

PhilHealth also pays the doctors’ fees of its member-patients to a total of 21,143 PhilHealth-accredited healthcare professionals all over the Philippines.

“We have increased the benefits for our PhilHealth members so that they will not shell out extra money to afford hospitalization expenses and doctors’ fees,” Aquino stressed. “However, if they correspondingly increase their rates and fees, they shall have effectively removed the positive impact of such an increase and, worse, shall have deprived our patients of enjoying the 35-percent increase in benefit payments,” he said.

The 35-percent rise in benefit payments created a new schedule of benefits that includes higher ceilings for room and board, drugs and medicines for as much as P40,000 for severe illnesses, x-ray and laboratory fees, use of operating room and professional fees depending on the level of hospital and case type. –Manila Standard Today