The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) has assured the continuous provision of health benefits for senior citizens.
In a statement, the state health insurer expressed its commitment of giving senior citizens “adequate financial protection when admitted for conditions requiring hospitalization and in availing of primary care services for the prevention and early detection of diseases.”
As of June 2022, around 13.8 million senior citizens and their dependents are currently registered under PhilHealth’s “Lifetime Program and Senior Citizens Program.”
“Lifetime members include retirees and pensioners who have reached the age of retirement and have paid at least 120 months of contributions to the program. Meanwhile, senior citizen members are those who do not belong to any of the membership categories and whose contributions are paid for by the National Government pursuant to Republic Act 10645,” the agency said.
The agency noted that elderly members “can immediately avail of benefits for inpatient care and select outpatient procedures, Z Benefit Packages, and other benefit packages being developed by PhilHealth.”
“For the first half of 2022, a total of P19.1 billion have already been paid by the state insurer for benefit claims of elderly patients under the Lifetime and Senior Citizens Program,” said PhilHealth.
“Senior members are also a priority to the agency's expanded primary care benefit package dubbed as Konsulta or Konsultasyong Sulit at Tama Package which can be availed of from accredited Konsulta providers of their choice,” it added.
PhilHealth said that the Konsulta Package was aimed at helping members “prevent or detect diseases early on.”
“The package includes targeted health risk screening and assessment; initial and follow up consultations; and laboratory tests and medicines, the availment of which will be subject to the recommendation of their primary care provider,” it said.
Laboratory and diagnostic tests included in the said package are complete blood count with platelet count, urinalysis, fecalysis, sputum microscopy, fecal occult blood, Pap smear, lipid profile, fasting blood sugar, oral glucose tolerance test, electrocardiogram, creatinine and HbA1c, said PhilHealth.
Meanwhile, medicines that will be made available include anti-microbial, anti-asthma, antipyretics, anti-dyslipidemia, anti-diabetic, and anti-hypertensive medicines, including fluids and electrolytes, anti-thrombotic, and antihistamines, added PhilHealth.