PhilHealth disputes VP claims

THE Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) on Friday, August 9, 2024, lashed back at Vice President Sara Duterte over her criticisms against the state-run health insurer, saying a long list of benefits enhancements have been implemented over the past months.

In a phone interview, PhilHealth Spokesman Dr. Israel Pargas said the agency has not been remiss in its duties to continuously improve its benefit packages for its members.

"We would like to inform our VP that we have aggressively increased and expanded our benefits," said Pargas.

"We are continuously improving on our benefits and are looking into another round of 30 percent increase in our case rates for this year," he added.

Pargas said PhilHealth has increased its pneumonia package to P90,000; stroke packages to P80,000; and increased its hemodialysis sessions from 90 to 156.

The agency said it has also increased the rates for hemodialysis to P4,000, as well as enhanced the Z Benefits Package for breast cancer by 1,400 percent (P100,000 to P1.4 million).

It also included the ultrasound of breast, upper, and abdomen in the Konsulta Package.

Pargas said also in the pipeline are the rationalization of case rates for dengue, cataract, and enhanced benefits for peritoneal dialysis, and chemotherapy for liver, lung, prostate, and cervical cancer.

PhilHealth said the drugs and medicines in the Konsulta Package have also been increased from 21 to 53 under PhilHealth GAMOT.

Pargas said they are open to having a dialogue with Duterte to extensively explain the work of PhilHealth.

"We are open and willing to sit down with our VP to inform her of what we are doing and discuss other improvements we can work on for the Filipino people," said Pargas.

Duterte earlier accused PhilHealth of transferring its excess funds instead of using them to enhance its benefit packages. (HDT/SunStar Philippines)