Latest in PhilHealthThe Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) is mandated by law to contribute to approximately 14 government agencies and programs, including PhilHealth, the Commission on Higher Education, the Philippine Sports Commission, the Dangerous Drugs Board, and the Department of Energy. And on top of…
For the first time, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office’s (PCSO) Guarantee Letter can now be used to cover a patient’s doctor’s professional fee, the one item that previously remained unpaid even after PhilHealth, the Medical Assistance for Indigent Patients program, senior citizen…
The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) technically sends nearly half of its entire charity fund to PhilHealth for Universal Health Care, which means that when a patient receives help from PhilHealth, part of that money came from PCSO. And yet, when that same patient walks into a PCSO…
Public health expert Dr. Tony Leachon is urging Health Secretary Edwin Mercado to implement a real-time medicine tracking and deployment system, coordinate with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to audit the quality of procured drugs, and publicly demand accountability from officials…
Eight out of ten pharmacies accredited under PhilHealth’s Gamot medicine program are private businesses rather than government pharmacies—a deliberate design choice driven by the recognition that private pharmacies have the supply chain expertise to ensure medicines are reliably available when…
Local government units can now use the Special Health Fund—the pool of PhilHealth payments they receive for health services—to hire doctors, nurses, and other medical workers, a critical new provision that Health Secretary Edwin Mercado said Saturday will help address the country’s chronic…
PhilHealth President and CEO Beverly Ho said Saturday that the clearest measure of success for the health sector by the end of the Marcos administration in 2028 is simple: no Filipino should fear entering a hospital because they do not know how much it will cost them. Ho made the statement in an…
PhilHealth benefit payouts have surged from ₱83 billion in 2023 to ₱330 billion in 2025 and are on track to reach ₱420 billion this year, as the expansion of the Yakap primary care program and the Gamot medicine benefit drives more Filipinos to use their PhilHealth coverage, the state-run social…
The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) has expanded its GAMOT medicine program from the original 21 medicines under the Konsulta program to 75 total, after adding 54 new medicines last year under the leadership of then-PhilHealth President and CEO Edwin Mercado, now the Secretary…
The Department of Health (DOH) will use telemedicine and roving health teams rather than fixed clinics to bring healthcare to geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas, acknowledging that brick-and-mortar health facilities are not always feasible in island communities and remote barangays…
The Gamot program launched by PhilHealth under the leadership of then-President and CEO Edwin Mercado has ended the common practice of patients with chronic conditions buying only three days’ worth of maintenance medicines at a time because they could not afford a full month’s supply, PhilHealth…
The number of Yakap primary care clinics has surged from just 119 before the Marcos administration to more than 4,000 today, with the program now reaching 96% of all Philippine cities and municipalities, newly appointed Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) President and CEO Beverly…
Newly appointed Health Secretary Edwin Mercado revealed Saturday that the Department of Health (DOH) and Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) will no longer operate as two separate agencies but will merge their roadmaps under a single Unified National Agenda for Health, or UNA…
Tuberculosis cases in the Philippines are rebounding after years of decline, with multi-drug resistant and extensively drug-resistant strains on the rise—a trend the country’s top health insurer attributes largely to patients failing to complete their treatment despite medicines being provided for…
PhilHealth is sounding the alarm on the long-term sustainability of its benefit expansion program, with its president and chief executive officer warning that the current pace of growth in benefit costs cannot be maintained beyond 2026 without a fundamental shift in how the country’s health…
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