86% of Filipinos are registered with PhilHealth —exec

At least 94.9 million out of 110 million Filipinos, or 86% of the population, are registered with the state insurer Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) so far, PhilHealth Vice President for Membership Management Oscar Abadu, Jr. said.

Abadu said that of this number, 52 million are PhilHealth members while 42.7 million are dependents.

The 52 million PhilHealth members include direct employed contributors, direct individual contributors and indirect contributors like families under the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), and senior citizens.

Abadu said that most of the 15.2 million Filipinos still not registered with PhilHealth are dependents. 

“Most of these [unregistered Filipinos] are dependents, kaya napakaimportante talaga na ma-update iyong mga details,” he said.

Abadu said that for 2021, PhilHealth is targeting to get 95% of the Philippine population enlisted, now that the Universal Health Care law has been passed.

Abadu said that the registering more beneficiaries will be done by allowing Filipinos to register and update their PhilHealth records in health care institutions such as public and private hospitals as well as primary care facilities such as public and private rural health care units (RHU).

“Since 2017, we have set up this point of service for enrollment of members, including iyong members na walang contribution. Basta certified sila na medical social worker na hindi sila PhilHealth member at hindi nakapagbayad ng PhilHealth premium, automatic, covered sila,” Abadu said.

For 2021, the government plans to speed up the accreditation process for the RHUs.

“Ang unang point of entry po ay iyong RHU, kaya we have to accredit RHU first. Ma-a-accredit lang ang RHU kapag nakapag-comply na sa criteria na isa-set ng PhilHealth, in partnership with Department of Health kasi it is the DOH which will provides licensing—the main basis of our accreditation,” Abadu said.

“Sa 2021, uunahin na muna namin ‘yung accreditation even without licensing para sa RHU. If we count the number of municipalities, that is our target,” he added.

There are at least 1,489 municipalities in the country.

“Sa lower level po muna iyong aming tinatarget para 95% na iyong registered by next year,” Abadu said. — BM, GMA News