MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) announced on Tuesday, April 7, the rate package for expenses of patients afflicted with the coronavirus disease.

PhilHealth president and CEO Ricardo Morales said that the coverage of expenses for Filipinos diagnosed with COVID-19 are listed in 4 categories with their corresponding case rate. This will be applied to patients admitted in PhilHealth-accredited hospitals beginning April 15. 

 These categories are:

• Mild pneumonia- P43,997;
• Moderate pneumonia- P143,267;
• Severe pneumonia- P333,519;
• Critical pneumonia- P786,384.

According to Morales, the package is pegged as pneumonia because this respiratory illness is the complication of the coronavirus disease. 

Meanwhile, Morales said the state insurer will cover all expenses of COVID-19 patients until April 14. 

“Up to April 14, all costs sasagutin ng PhilHealth, walang dapat ibayad ang mga pasyente. Naglabas kami ng mga advisory sa mga hospitals about this policy (Up to April 14, PhilHealth will shoulder all costs, the patients will not pay anything. We released an advisory to hospitals about this policy),” Morales said. 

In a statement issued on April 1, PhilHealth said that the reason for the accommodation window is “due to the novelty and the wide range of severity of the disease in the country for which no existing rate or package based on accepted protocols has yet been established.” (READ: Lack of PhilHealth rules on coronavirus expenses leaves patient’s family in limbo)

P6 billion funds released

Morales said that a total of P6 billion of the P30 billion initial funds of PhilHealth has been released Tuesday.

“Ang inapproved namin na fund release ay P6 billion na. Pero alam ninyo ang mga banks kasi ngayon ay nag operate 2 hours a day tapos skeletal force pati ang ating office personnel, so medyo hindi mabilis ang paglipat ng pera. Malaki kasi eh P30 billion. We’re trying our best para mabilis ang pagtransfer ng pera,” Morales added. 

(We have approved a total of P6 billion so far. But the banks now are only operating 2 hours per day and  on skeleton workforce as well us our office personnel, so the transfer of money is a bit slow. P30 billion is a huge amount. We’re trying our best to hasten the transfer of funds.)

According to Morales the state insurer has informed the over 5,000 PhilHealth-accredited hospitals nationwide of the case rate advisory for coronavirus patients

Under the Universal Health Care Law, PhilHealth is tasked with implementing the National Health Insurance Program, which covers all Filipinos.

As of Monday, the Philippines had 3,660 cases of coronavirus, with 163 deaths and 73 recoveries. The virus had infected more than 1.2 million of the gobal population, with over 69,000 deaths and 260,000 recoveries. – Rappler.com