Best Posts in Thread: PhilHealth

Glad you got us back on topic, i had to google some of the words being used in previous comments (parochialism) for example .
Any way there's me going of topic now, what i wanted to comment about was the 4200p that your wife paid, my wife just paid hers and it was 3600p which was still a 50% increase from the 2400p that she used to pay, when she told me about the increase i thought they were trying to make up for the millions that went missing last year then i see your wife is paying even more....

 

Great news. This reminds me that wife and I (SRRV) need to make a payment for this next period. Can’t make a claim or gain admission to a hospital unless you keep the receipts showing you are paid up for the last x months plus your MDR form. Make sure you have those close at hand. The card itself isn’t enough. Not sure about emergency admissions.


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Based upon my experience paying hospital bills for family members there, a cc with a 2k limit should cover most medical expenses. For example, I just had a 19 year old niece go to Holy Child and had a very extensive battery of tests and a few nights stay. I am thinking total costs were around 40k php, which at today's exchange rate of 48 peso to 1 usd is about $833.00. Add in surgery and costs could go up quite a lot. To fully self insure, I would guess a minimum of 10k USD, or 480,000 php would be close. For someone with many high risk factors, you may one closer to 20k usd.

This brings in to question also cc rates. I have 3 with no foreign transaction fees, something everyone should have. No sense paying 3% extra if you don't have to. Interest rates are also something to look at. Compound interest on a cc can bankrupt you on super high amounts if your not careful.

Your best bet is to save, save, save. Have a local account at a bank, plus one in the US. Maybe even set up a second account in the local bank just for a health savings account. Sure it will take away from your fun, but it will save you loads of trouble when you need it. The added advantage to this format is transferring money via transferwise or xoom both have less fees going directly into a bank account.

If your wondering which is better, xoom or transferwise, transferwise is better for direct bank account to bank account transfers. They have a couple issues delaying payments-especially over a weekend- but they will save you a lot in the long term. If you have to transfer via credit card xoom is better. We actually had to do this not to long ago as we had just finished almost 8 months worth of upgrade work to our house in Bacong, when my wife's dad died. We didn't have enough capital left for the cows, pigs, and a few other things for the funeral, so we used a credit card knowing we could pay it off in a month or two. Xoom beat transferwise fee wise for cc transfers.

Again this is all based solely on my experiences, however they are all within the last couple months.

 

Philhealth has a catalog of diagnoses and a fixed case rate they will pay for each of them. In public hospitals, the policy is that this is all the hospital will get, no additional payment has to be done by the patient. Private hospitals will bill the difference of course. There's also a couple other rules, e.g. they won't pay anything if you leave the hospital early or come back with the same illness a second time around in a certain number of months.

https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/8/12/philhealth-case-rate-2019.html

here's the case rates of 2017 - don't know if there is a newer version already though:

https://www.philhealth.gov.ph/circulars/2017/annexes/0019/AnnexA-MedicalCaseRates.pdf

 

It's been a few years since I read the rules. As I recall if the patient is in a ward (non-private) room they must allow the patient to sign a promissory note. There did not seem to be any qualification on the conditions of that note. It is up to the hospital to decide what is acceptable. Recently a friend (in a private room) had an outstanding balance of 50K. The hospital would not accept the CR on their pickup truck worth about 350K.
Another patient had a fairly large outstanding bill. My friend gave the hospital his passport and promised to pay a portion of the bill. He paid his share of the bill but the hospital refused to return his passport once he paid his part. Other guarantors had not yet met their obligations was the excuse given. The situation was fairly quickly resolved when the hospital administrator found out my friend was not taking that sh!t. He got his passport back but was told not to darken their doorway EVER.

Someone suggested self insuring by having a credit card with a fairly high credit limit. That is probably the best idea I have ever heard.

 

You can also self-insure in part with a foreign higher limit credit card in case costs get really high...but more likely costs are not too high for short term treatments. I see that these private hospitals do accept US MC and VISA.


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I think it changed a couple of years ago. Recently a hospital wouldn't recognize me as a dependent. My better half went to the main Phil Health office and got a document that stated I am covered. I've been a dependent for almost 10 yesrs. It is worthwhile to make sure you are listed as a dependent if eligible.
My cousin was recently treated for covid19. Total bill 150,000 pesos. Phil Health paid 120,000 pesos.