I am excited to benefit soon from my govt's universal healthcare enhancement set exclusively for dialysis patients like myself
Dialysis patients really cannot get a break from paying for our every dialysis treatment because somehow every dialysis clinic is charging us a "copay" which is a burden to our pockets if a patient would opt-in for a more frequent dialysis treatment like I do so that I would not feel much literally toxic with my body. The dialysis clinic where I go for my treatment sessions charges the least amount of copay which is now 500 pesos from the former amount of 300 pesos because the additional 200 pesos was added due to the cost of being examined in the triage which is the clinic's waiting room and the hospital says that it would cover the used alcohol and also the protective gear or "hazmat suits" which they were wearing back then. Now that they also discontinued the triage, the charge of 500 pesos per hospital visit remained although they made a promo where if a patient will opt-in for a three times per week dialysis session like I did, on the third session there will no copay charge anymore but regardless the hospital still wins because what just happened was we didn't get to be overcharged much. That is why until now being a dialysis patient is called a "rich man's disease" for the reason that the patient continues to pay fees after fees particularly if the hospital or clinic where you are being treated regularly requires you to produce laboratory test results in a regular manner which is what the patient needs really on order for the attending nephrologist to better care for your condition to avoid complications but the these things are not free of charge and so if you are just earning a little money or a limited cash savings, then you will know what will happen to your financial and social standing (from being rich turning into a to dirt poor) aside from your current health and ultimately your life (you'll be more likely to die sooner).
I had seen a lot of dialysis copatients already which died because they could not fund their dialysis needs anymore for the reason that in those times there are not much patients that uses Philhealth and if there are, the benefits are just limited to only few months then they would go back paying the sessions in cash which is really to heavy as a burden which is why I had said that some patients would eventually tap-out and die like an animal on the street and dying in the most horrific slow death. Thankfully during those early years of being a dialysis patient, my church in coordination with my Nephrologist supported me for several years before I finally figured-out in using my government's universal health care insurance system. It was handed over to me by the municipal town government where at that time my village officials had put me in the list of beneficiaries. It is supposed to be paid by the government because I am in the charity category. It is only after six years or so when I figured out on how to use it after learning it from onw of the local shows in the the television. I learned that I have to pay premium for at least 9 months or so and then I can already use it for my succeeding dialysis treatments from my current dialysis clinic. During the earlier years of not using my Philhealth, my treatments are being paid by my church, I do not even pay for the copay as well, it is because the charges for my treatments as I have mentioned is taken cared by agreement of my Nephrologist and my church. But my use of dialyzer is not free and changing it became an issue because I have seen that my nurses are trying to use it for as long as they can and it manifested when the dialysis machine would alarm constantly and in turn affecting my dialysis treatment session considering that I am only using a regular dialyzer and I am only getting dialysis two times per week. Th is why I decided to pay for the whole year premium because I am already earning a substantial amount of money at that time so that I can finally use my Philhealth and avail for replacing my dialyzer regularly and later getting a high flux dialyzer because of its benefits for my body which is to pull more bigger molecule toxins from my body.
Now the new benefit as the title says is not yet felt by the dialysis patients currently as the hospitals are waiting for the "Memo" which would come from Philhealth stating that they will give the said additional payment per session dialysis to patients in the coming weeks or days even. So I am excited about it because it might mean that I will never have to pay extra whenever there is a need that I change my dialyzer which is a pain in the pocket even with a discount. It is the reason that I would try to use my dialyzer eight times or more than half a month so that I can avoid paying for the second dialyzer use because the total amount of it without the discount is 2,200 pesos. So if for every session the Philhealth would pay the amount of 4,000 pesos, it is enough for even paying for the copay too and I will have to see if my hospital would waive their copay but I am not expecting much because hospitals are still businesses and given the fact that everything is getting more expensive because of inflation, there will be always a need to extract money from the bread and butter of hospitals which are the patients. But I am just happy about these additional benefits for the patients the dialysis patients in particular because of course any help and assistance that we receive is highly appreciated because it is really hard to live with this condition even if the patient is getting a tip-top medical care because nothing is normal anymore particularly the patient's strength will never come back to normal again. But this particular additional amount coverage per session will surely give every dialysis patients some easement one way or another and I just hope that it will not be solely used for EPO injections but rather to cover the need for replacing dialyzers because of its high expense which is a number one burden for dialysis patients to pay.
Upvoted! Thank you for supporting witness @jswit.