Philhealth to increase contribution

by Che Palicte
Johanna Blason, Social Insurance Officer III of Philhealth, said in an interview yesterday that self-employed and voluntary individuals earning twenty-five thousand pesos (PhP25,000) and below per month are given an increase of 50 percent in their contributions up to December 31, 2013.
“The implementation of the 100 percent increase was supposed to be done last July 2012, but due to the request of different individuals and the calamities that happened, it was moved to January 2013 with only 50 percent as partial increase” Blason explained.
She added that self-employed individuals under the Individually Paying Program shall pay the minimum annual premium contribution of one thousand eight hundred pesos (Pl,800.00) effective only from January to December 2013 provided that, self-employed professionals earning an average monthly income of more than twenty five thousand pesos (P25,OOO.OO) shall pay their annual premium contribution in the amount of three thousand six hundred pesos (P3,600.00).
Overseas Workers under the Overseas Workers Program shall pay the minimum annual premium contribution of One Thousand Two Hundred Pesos (PhPl,200.00) which is effective since January 2012 up to December 2013 only.
Blason added that Philhealth is enhancing the benefits for this year. They have applied programs for Philhealth beneficiaries such as: (1) primary care benefits 1 (PCB1) package,which entitles members to basic, quality health care services through accredited public health care providers nationwide, (2) animal bite treatment package, which defrays the cost of postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) treatment which will be given three thousand pesos (P3,000) for the treatment and (3)‘Z benefit’, thenewest package of benefits that primarily addresses catastrophic cases such as acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) who will be given two hundred ten thousand pesos for treatment (P210,000), breast cancercases can avail one hundred thousand pesos (P100,000) , prostate cancer cases can avail one hundred thousand pesos (P100,000) for treatment and kidney transplant amounting to six hundred thousand pesos (P600,000).
Blason said Philhealth is gearing to an all case rates policy before the end of the year and the “No Balance billing (NBB)” policy now called “Sapat Na’ was introduced and adopted for the most common medical and surgical conditions which will benefit the less privileged members.