More Filipinos will now be able to avail of PhilHealth coverage of optometric services and assistive devices like prescription eyeglasses or spectacles.
This as PhilHealth told the Senate Health committee chaired by Senator Christopher Lawrence Go that it will include optometric services in its list of coverage by the end of November.
“Preventive eye care and the inclusion of optometric services and prescription eyeglasses coverage by PhilHealth is important to enable early detection of eye and vision problems in children,” said Dr. Charlie Ho, Integrated Philippine Association of Optometrists (IPAO) chairman.
“Many eye issues and even blindness are preventable with early intervention, but many Filipinos lack access to primary eye care from optometrists,” he added.
A World Report on Vision in 2019 revealed that half of the world population will be myopic or near-sighted by the year 2050.
A 2018 Philippine Eye Disease Study highlighted that vision impairment and blindness have a prevalence rate of 1.98 percent, which represents 1.11 million Filipinos with cataract, about 400,000 with uncorrected error of refraction, almost 300,000 with glaucoma, and around 200,000 with maculopathy/diabetic retinopathy.
Go also encouraged PhilHealth to support vision care services, especially for children, to improve learning and academic performance and prevent complications of high myopia like early cataract, retinal detachment and myopia macular degeneration (MMD), a blinding disease.
Eli Dino D. Santos, PhilHealth Executive Vice President, said the expanded benefits of the state health insurer are aligned with the Universal Health Care Law.
The Senate hearing was also attended by Dr. John Nakpil, IPAO president; Dr. Mildred Pre, chairman of Philippine Society of Public Health and Occupational Optometry (PSPHOO); and Christine Rodriguez and Fides Masanga of the Board of Optometry.
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