Tuguegarao City (23 February) -- The National Health Insurance Program (NHIP) also known as PhilHealth increased its membership in all sectors to 451,754 or 2.11 million beneficiaries all over Cagayan Valley Region.

Mr. Oscar Abadu, OIC-Manager, said the cumulative membership reached 60% coverage to the total population of the valley with claim reimbursement payment of 298.9 million pesos last year for 1.8 million total beneficiaries served.

Abadu said 69 out of 87 Local Government Units (LGUs) or 79% of the municipalities have sponsored families enlisted under sponsored program, either solely subsidized by the province, municipality, city or jointly subsidized by both.

"To strengthen benefit availment of members and to ensure that reimbursement of claims will be paid to the rightful payee, the statement of account duly signed by the member and official receipt are required as attachments to claim documents," Abadu said as he explained the new strategy they implemented to strengthen benefit availment of the members.

They also fully implemented the policy on Membership Data Record (MDR) requirement to be attached to claim applications and aside from facilitating the processing of claims, the move has also ushered members who have not previously submitted documents as proof of dependency to update their records.

As of December, there were 64 Accredited Health Care Providers (AHCPS), 20 Out Patient Benefit (OPB) packages, 13 Directly Observed Treatment Short-Course (DOTS), 4 maternity clinics and 550 accredited professionals in Philhealth region 2.