PhilHealth's frontline services now available at Baguio service office

Posted on | Friday 25 March 2011 | No Comments

by Lito Dar

BAGUIO CITY, March 26 – The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PHIC) or Philhealth frontline services are now being offered at their Baguio Service Office along Bonifacio Street fronting the Saint Louis University (SLU) main gate.

According to PHIC-CAR information officer Maggie Del Rosario, all frontline services which include payments of premium, submission and follow-up of claims, issuance of Member Data Record, printing out of member contributions, and other inquiries, are now all being done at the Baguio Service Office which opened last March 14.

The regional office at the Social Security Services (SSS) building along Harrison Road only provides backroom services such as monitoring of services and policy implementation.

A service office was likewise opened in La Trinidad, Benguet near the provincial capitol which also offers the same frontline services. This, is in addition to the regular service desk they maintain in Buguias, Benguet.
With the opening of the Baguio and La Trinidad, Benguet Service offices, PHIC now has frontline services office in all the capital towns of Cordillera.

Meantime, in an earlier statement, PHIC president and CEO Dr. Rey Aquino assured that overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who have been repatriated from the troubled Middle East and North African countries may still use the unexpired portion of their Philhealth coverage, in case they or their legal dependents in the country are hospitalized.

"We want to assure our OFW-members that should hospitalization needs arise, they may still avail themselves of their PhilHealth benefits, provided the period of confinement is within the effectivity period of their coverage," Aquino said.

Among the in-patient medical care benefits that OFWs and other PhilHealth members may avail are allowances for hospital room and board fees, drugs and medicines, x-ray and laboratory fees, as well as allowances for the use of operating room complex, and for the professional fees of attending physicians. These benefits may be availed of in accredited institutional health care facilities in the country.

At the same time, OFWs and their dependents are also entitled to a menu of outpatient diagnostic benefits in 42 DOH-retained hospitals nationwide. To date, there are over two million registered OFW-members in PhilHealth's database. *(PIA CAR)


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