The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) on Saturday said the increase in the coverage rates of most of its benefit packages will take effect on Feb. 14.
Last November, PhilHealth announced it would increase the rates of its benefits packages up to 30 percent to lessen the out-of-pocket expenses for Filipinos availing of health care services using the state health insurer.
PhilHealth spokesperson Rey Baleña told radio DZBB the state firm issued Circular No. 2024-001, which contains the case rates or benefit packages subject to increase or adjustment.
Under the circular, which takes effect Feb. 14, PhilHealth adopted an inflation adjustment factor of 30% for existing case rates to account for price changes over the past decade.
Baleña, however, said not all case rate packages would increase since these were already adjusted in the last five years.
High-risk pneumonia was exempted from the 30% adjustment, he added.
For stroke, the PhilHealth official said the benefit coverage was increased by more than 150% last year. The coverage for ischemic stroke used to be P28,000, now its P76,000, while for hemorrhagic fever, the old rate of P38,000 became P80,000, Baleña said.
He added that PhilHealth was also looking into rationalizing the case rates for six conditions.
PhilHealth increased the premium or member’s contribution to 5% from 4% this year, but Health Secretary Ted Herbosa appealed for the suspension of the enforcement of the increase.
President Marcos, however, had yet to decide on the appeal, as he wanted to see an increase in services following the implementation of the premium hike.
