MANILA — The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) is preparing to expand its benefits coverage significantly, owing to its stable financial standing, an official revealed on Monday.
PhilHealth President and CEO Emmanuel Ledesma Jr. announced during a press briefing that the agency aims to increase its benefit coverage by 30 to 50 percent across all packages by November.
This initiative follows a similar 30 percent increase in coverage for most of its packages, which took effect in February 2024.
PhilHealth is also working to introduce benefit packages for the top 10 most burdensome diseases in the Philippines, 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 under its expanded healthcare benefits program.
Ledesma highlighted that PhilHealth’s solid financial health is enabling the agency to lower Filipinos’ out-of-pocket healthcare expenses.
“One of the reasons we are actively upgrading the case packages is because PhilHealth has substantial funds,” Ledesma said.
“It’s been more than a decade since PhilHealth’s case packages were enhanced.
For almost 10 years, they remained unchanged, causing a buildup of funds,” he explained.
Ledesma further noted that the number of benefit claims decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, while premium contributions continued to rise under the Universal Health Care Law.
As of September 30, 2024, PhilHealth’s investments have grown to P512 billion, with over P9 billion already remitted by the national government. So far, payouts for case packages have amounted to P120 billion this year.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on January 14, 2025, regarding the transfer of P89.9 billion of PhilHealth’s funds to the National Treasury.
Several groups have requested to halt the transfer.