PhilHealth: All outpatient emergencies covered

February 21, 2025 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — All outpatient emergency services are now covered at accredited hospitals nationwide, according to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp.

PhilHealth’s facility-based emergency benefit started to cover outpatient emergency cases on Feb. 14.

Hospitals do not need a separate accreditation to provide facility-based emergency benefits, the state health insurer noted.

If they have extension facilities, hospitals should submit a certification identifying the affiliated facility and its complete address, PhilHealth said.

The insurer introduced last month its outpatient emergency care benefit package under a set of new and expanded benefit packages this year.

The package covers facility-based and pre-hospital emergency benefits.

Coverage for ambulance services will be announced at a later date.

Meanwhile, premium contributions paid to PhilHealth last year reached over P167 billion.

Total premium rates paid by members were P167.393 billion, from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, 2024, based on latest PhilHealth data.

Of the amount, P139.558 billion was paid by direct contributors.

Private employees had the highest contribution at 61 percent or P102.290 billion, followed by government workers at 18 percent or P30.519 billion and the informal economy at four percent or P6.748 billion.

Indirect contributors’ total contribution amounted to P27.835 billion.

Indigents contributed seven percent or P11.508 billion, followed by senior citizens at nine percent or P15.549 billion and sponsored members at 0.5 percent or P777 million.

Early this year, the House of Representatives approved a bill reducing the PhilHealth premium contribution rate to 3.5 percent from five percent.