Smart offers PhilHealth premium payments through cellphones

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) has partnered with leading wireless provider Smart Communications to launch a new service that will allow individual-paying PhilHealth members to send their premium payments using their own mobile phones.

This will give PhilHealth members a more convenient and efficient way of remitting their monthly premiums.

With ‘Remittance-By-Air’, individual-paying PhilHealth members may convert their load into premium payments, allowing them to pay their monthly premiums anytime, anywhere through their Smart mobile phone, for only P15 per transaction.

“We are pleased to provide a pioneering service that enables Filipinos to take advantage of the reach and power of mobile technology to conveniently complete transactions, such as paying for their PhilHealth contribution,” Smart wireless consumer division head Danilo Mojica said.

PhilHealth and Smart have designed ‘Remittance-By-Air’ as a convenient payment option to help encourage regular remittance of voluntary members, which includes those who are self-employed (lawyers, doctors, businessmen), drivers and helpers. With the service, PhilHealth aims to reach out to about three million individually-paying PhilHealth members.

“We are excited to help a lot of our members with this service. This convenient means to regularly pay for their premium will help them avoid missing out on premium payments, which can prevent them from availing their benefits during sickness and hospital confinement. By simply texting their payment, they can spend more productive time in their businesses or professions,” said Phil-Health president and CEO Dr. Rey Aquino.

To take advantage of the ‘Remittance-By-Air’ payment service, an individual-paying member simply needs to text PHIC (space) <PIN> to 7442. The PIN can be found on the PhilHealth Number Card (PNC).This message only costs P2.50.

The member will then receive a reply confirming the correct PhilHealth Member ID. Continuing the service costs P112.50-worth of airtime load (monthly premium of P100 plus the P12.50 transaction cost).

With ‘Remittance-By-Air’, PhilHealth individual-paying members will receive important health alerts and monthly payment reminders, enabling them to monitor payments more efficiently.

The service is open to all Smart and Talk ‘N Text subscribers. One mobile number may be used to avail of the service for multiple PhilHealth members, provided that the next transaction will be done 24 hours after the previous transaction.