During the pandemic year, the number of claimants to their sickness benefits in the state-run Social Security System (SSS) dropped by half compared to the filings in 2019.
The number of members who availed sickness benefits under the social security fund last year went down to 269,604 from 458,851 in the previous year.
The SSS said it released only P1.82 billion in sickness benefits last year, marking a nearly 40-percent drop from the P2.97 billion in 2019.
SSS President and Chief Executive Officer Aurora C. Ignacio said the imposition on lockdown measures last year caused the decline in the number of applications. According to Ignacio, the 76-day restriction on mobility from March 17 to May 31, 2020, affected the filing for various benefit claims in different branches of the SSS.
Prior to the imposition of lockdown measures, the total sickness benefit disbursements from the social security fund and the number of beneficiaries availing sickness benefits have been rising every year since 2016.
For this year, Ignacio said they are expecting total sickness benefit disbursements to rise along with the easing of community quarantine restrictions.
“Comparatively, social security fund total sickness benefit disbursements in 2016 amounted to P2.17 billion, and in 2017, it reached P2.42 billion. It further increased to P2.65 billion in 2018 and P2.97 billion in 2019,” Ignacio was quoted as saying in a statement the SSS issued over the weekend. “We are expecting the figures will increase for 2021 as the government eases community quarantine guidelines that will allow more people to go out of their respective homes.”
The statement comes as the Philippines records a surge in Covid-19 cases, posting a record-high daily tally of 7,999 new cases of infection last Saturday.
According to the SSS, the sickness benefit is a daily cash allowance granted to qualified members confined at home or in the hospital for at least four days, including the recovery period due to an illness or injury. The number of compensable days is up to 120 days per calendar year that can be extended for another 120 days the following year on account of the same medical condition. Illnesses or injuries that persist for over 240 days can qualify for SSS disability benefits.
The SSS said employers may file sickness benefit reimbursement claims through the pension fund manager’s online facility for “Social Security Sickness Benefit Reimbursement Applications,” or SBRAs. The SSS said the filing could be done without the employer “having to wait for the hard copy of the approved sickness notification and the need to submit a duly accomplished SBRA form to an SSS office after giving advance payment to the employee.”
The development of the online facility for SBRAs, which is available at the SSS’s web portal, is part of our ongoing digital transformation drive, now made more significant due to the health and safety protocols imposed by the government to stop the spread of the Covid-19 virus, the SSS said in the statement.
“Aside from expediting the processing time of sickness benefit reimbursements by eliminating the transmission of claims from SSS branches to processing centers, this online facility will also reduce face-to-face interactions in our branches to help government efforts to stop spreading the virus,” Ignacio said.
Meanwhile, disbursements for sickness benefit under the Employees’ Compensation (EC) fund also decreased by 27.5 percent last year to P186.41 million from P257.01 million in 2019.
The number of beneficiaries also declined to 22,757 members from 34,860 in the previous year.
Since 2016, EC sickness benefit disbursement has also been increasing annually. It reached P100.44 million in 2016 benefiting 25,201 members, P121.29 million for 30,325 members in 2017, then P140.13 million for 31,662 members in 2018.
As of December 2020, the pension fund has a total of 38.8 million members, of which less than half, or only 41.7 percent (16.18 million) are regular paying members.
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