Beneficiaries of the Modified Conditional Cash Transfer program can now avail of benefits of the National Health Insurance Program as sponsored members of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth).

This is as per PhilHealth Advisory No. 05-01-2015 extending the entitlement of NHIP benefits of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program beneficiaries to the MCCT beneficiaries.

The MCCT is a component of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program that reaches out to poor and vulnerable families not covered by the regular Pantawid Pamilya program because of their being excluded in the enumeration of the Listahanan targeting system. Its beneficiaries include homeless street families, itinerant indigenous peoples (IPs) and IPs in geographically-isolated and disadvantaged areas.

In the CALABARZON Region, 1,196 household-beneficiaries of the MCCT will be benefitting from the health insurance program.

These beneficiaries are IP-households belonging to the Dumagat and Aeta groups in Antipolo City, Rodriguez and Tanay in Rizal Province and Real, Mauban, Catanauan, Buenavista, General Nakar and Lopez in Quezon Province. There are also Sama-Bajau beneficiaries from Batangas City and Balayan in Batangas Province and Lucena City in Quezon.

Since 2012, beneficiaries of the regular Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program have been receiving PhilHealth’s primary care benefit package, inpatient and outpatient care services and no-balance billing policy.

Jocelyn Villenas, a Pantawid beneficiary from Sampaloc in Quezon Province, shares that their entitlement to PhilHealth benefits is a big help for families like them.

“Nabawasan ang bills namin sa ospital noong na-confine ang asawa ko dahil may PhilHealth kami,” shared Villenas.

For the MCCT beneficiaries, they can avail of the same benefit through presenting their MCCT identification cards to PhilHealth-accredited facilities.# with reports from HSMaligaya and MAGDiaz