By Perla Lena
TACLOBAN CITY, (PNA) — Eastern Visayas region has the highest enrollment of sponsored members with state-run Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) in the country.
As of end of September this year sponsored members have reached 982, 414, according to Philhealth regional vice president Walter R. Bacareza.
Premium payment of the more than one half of the enrollees or 665,815 is being shouldered by local government units (LGUs) while 316,599 are subsidized by the national government since they have been identified through the National Household Targeting System (NHTS).
The province of Leyte has the highest LGU-sponsored members with 345,331 followed by Samar with 107, 390.
Northern Samar has 98, 665; Southern Leyte, 46,693;Eastern Samar, 40,925 and Biliran with 26, 811.
On the other hand, under NHTS, Leyte has 123,958; Samar, 70,377; Northern Samar, 55,039; Eastern Samar, 37,354 and Biliran with 7, 852.
Once hospitalized, patients under the sponsored program avail of the zero-balance billing policy, which means that they will no longer shell out money from their pockets.
PhilHealth has a total of 1,480,701 members in Eastern Visayas to also include 121,365 employed with the government; 178,855 in private sector; 43,770 overseas Filipino workers; 125, 668 voluntary enrollment and 28,629 as lifetime members.