THE Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) has settled more than P173 billion in hospital benefit claims in the first seven months of 2025.
Data released by PhilHealth showed that it paid P173.68 billion in benefit claims from January 1 to August 2.
"This is 86.39 percent higher than last year for the same period, which was at P93.18 billion," PhilHealth said.
Of the total, P102.04 billion was paid to private hospitals, while P71.64 billion went to government health facilities.
In a recent interview, PhilHealth President and Chief Executive Officer (P/CEO) Edwin Mercado said the higher payments were due to the larger benefit packages offered by the state-run health insurer.
"The 50 percent across-the-board increase that was implemented this January means an automatic 50 percent increase from last year," Mercado explained.
"Add to these our new benefit packages introduced... Those are the ones that were added to the payments," he added. (Anton Banal/SunStar Philippines)