Health Secretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, shown here during a Sept. 20, 2021, DOH online media forum. (File photo from a live stream posted on the DOH Facebook page)
MANILA, Philippines — Health Secretary Maria Rosario Vergeire praised the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) on Wednesday for expanding its coverage of hemodialysis sessions from 90 to 144 until Dec. 31.
“We thank PhilHealth for expanding its benefits for dialysis patients through this issuance,” Vergeire said in a statement. “It will improve the access of our kababayans [countrymen] to life-saving services and help in our implementation of universal health care.”
The new policy took effect on Wednesday, Aug. 3, immediately after the state insurer published the PhilHealth Circular No. 2022-0017.
The new policy, which will be in effect until Dec. 31, will cover PhilHealth members and their dependents with stage 5 of chronic kidney disease. But they must be registered in the PhilHealth Dialysis Database.
Following are the other conditions:
- The dialysis sessions must be prescribed by their attending physicians.
- The 91st to 144th sessions will be exclusively used for outpatient dialysis only.
- Any unused sessions will not be carried over to 2023.
Qualified patients who already used their 91st to 144th dialysis sessions but were unable to avail of the automatic deductions of the benefits from their medical bills can still directly file their claims with any PhilHealth regional or branch office or Local Health Insurance Offices according to existing guidelines.
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From 90, PhilHealth expands dialysis sessions to 144 for rest of 2022