PhilHealth-Cordillera pays P777.86 M member benefits

By Carlito C. Dar

BAGUIO CITY -- The PhilHealth Regional Office – Cordillera reported a surplus in members benefit payments over their collection for the first three quarters of 2012.

PhRO-CAR Chief Social Insurance Officer Catalina Adawey, in a recent media forum, reported that as of September 30, 2012, the office has a total benefit payments of P777,865,031.58 for their members all over the region against their collection of P399,268,127.53.

Adawey said this shows that with PhilHealth president and CEO Dr. Eduardo Banzon’s leadership, the members’ health care are their priorities as embodied in their slogan, “Bawat Pilipino Miyembro, Bawat Miyembro Protektado, Kalusugan natin sigurado”. 

PhRO-CAR now has a total membership of 516,452 where 56,802 are government employees,119,144 are private sector workers, 113,388 are Individually Paying Members, 153,805 are sponsored members, 58,725 are Overseas Filipino Workers and 14,588 are Lifetime members.

As PhilHealth is gearing towards Universal Health Coverage new and more enhanced health benefit packages are continuously being given to its 29 million family members, which is equivalent to about 82 million individual beneficiaries or around 86 percent of the country’s population.

Adawey shared that under Banzon, PhilHealth has rolled-out the case rate system, initially to 23 medical and surgical cases and the No Balance Billing for their sponsored members when hospitalized in PhilHealth- beds in all government hospitals.

There is also the Animal Bite Treatment Package which defrays the cost of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) treatment and the Leptospirosis Benefit Package for moderate leptospirosis that is requiring admission with a case rate payment of P11,000.

In the middle of this year, Banzon with President Benigno Aquino III and Health Secretary Enrique Ona launched the ‘Z benefit’, the newest package of benefits that primarily address catasthropic cases, which initially include Childhood Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, breast and prostate cancer and kidney transplant. Adawey also shared that cardiac bypass and prosthesis are also set to be included in the Z package.

To ensure that government health care facilities are fully equipped to provide the best health care services to PhilHealth members, they have operationalize the Global Budget Payment Program (GBPP).

“These are just among the new and enhanced packages that PhilHealth has for its members and to ensure that members can properly avail of such benefits, there are also nurses hired and assigned in various hospitals nationwide under the PhilHealth CARES (Customer Assistance, Relations and Empowerment Staff) project to assist them”, Adawey added.