President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. On Wednesday has directed the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation to expand its coverage for its members following his meeting with PhilHealth officials at Malacañang.

Marcos has also reminded PhilHealth to guarantee that all hemodialysis patients could avail of these benefit packages, according to a statement released by the Presidential Communications Office.

Meantime, PhilHealth acting president and CEO Emmanuel Ledesma Jr. presented its short-term plan — or the first six months of 2023 — such as increasing the hemodialysis coverage from 90 to 156 sessions, repealing the pay-whichever-is-lower corporate policy in payment claims and increasing the case rate of the top four packages covering 25 percent of filed claims.

With its widened dialysis coverage, PhilHealth will increase dialysis support to three times a week for outpatients, equivalent to full weekly coverage annually.

Also part of the state health insurer’s short-term plan is the introduction of PhilHealth mobile app and short message service confirmations, as well as implementation of new benefit packages.

Under its new packages, PhilHealth is looking to introduce the outpatient mental health benefit package, outpatient package for severe acute malnutrition for children below five years old and strengthen its Konsulta package.

PhilHealth also plans to rationalize the Covid-19 in-patient packages, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and rapid antigen tests as well as isolation packages.