THE Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) yesterday said it is expanding its outpatient hemodialysis package to 156 sessions for the year from the original 90 sessions, despite the suspension in the increase of its premium rate.
In a press conference, PhilHealth president Emmanuel Ledesma said the increase in the number of sessions was based on “standards for adequate dialysis, which requires three four-hour sessions every week for chronic kidney disease (CKD) stage 5 patients.”
PhilHealth senior vice president Israel Pargas said the state insurer targets to finish guidelines on the expansion around August.
“Basically, the 90 sessions will end up to around the second semester or at least until August. So we have the time until the second semester to make sure the guidelines on the 156 sessions are released,” he said.
“Hopefully, we can come out with the policy the soonest to make sure that our people and our dialysis patients are already informed and our institutions are actually ready,” he added.
The increase comes amid the directive of Malacañang for PhilHealth to suspend the premium rate increase for this year, which would have upped the rate to 4.5 percent from 4 percent.
PhilHealth covers P2,600 for each outpatient hemodialysis session.
Last year, PhilHealth also increased its coverage for outpatient hemodialysis from 90 to a maximum of 144 sessions.
