PhilHealth expands dialysis coverage

The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) will now cover more hemodialysis sessions for those with kidney diseases in a bid to lessen the financial burden of its members.

In a statement, PhilHealth president and chief executive officer Alexander Padilla said that coverage for hemodialysis will be expanded from 45 to 90 sessions per year.

“The PhilHealth Board of Directors approved the expansion due to the growing incidence of kidney diseases in the country and to respond to the increasing clamor from different stakeholders to increase PhilHealth coverage for hemodialysis,” he said.

Padilla said the increase in coverage was made possible by the lowering of the case rate amount from P4,000 to only P2,500 per session.

“Based on a series of consultative meetings and dialogues with our stakeholders, our current coverage of P4,000 for hemodialysis is more than enough to cover the treatment cost per session, thus, we are adjusting the case rate amount,” said Padilla.