YAKAP for Your Family: How Dependents Get Free Healthcare

Yes — your qualified dependents get the exact same free YAKAP benefits you do: free primary care checkups, free laboratory tests, up to P20,000 a year in medicines, and free cancer screenings. Under PhilHealth Circular No. 2025-0017, a beneficiary is "any individual — member or qualified dependent — who is eligible to avail of PhilHealth benefits," so the rules make no distinction between you and your family once they are properly enrolled.

Getting them covered takes two things: declaring them as your dependents on your PhilHealth record, then enrolling each one in a YAKAP clinic. This guide walks through both.

Who Counts as a Qualified Dependent?

A qualified dependent is a family member covered under your PhilHealth membership without paying separate contributions. PhilHealth's official qualified dependents list includes:

Your legitimate spouse — as long as they are not a PhilHealth member themselves
Your children below 21 — legitimate, legitimated, acknowledged, illegitimate, adopted, or stepchildren, provided they are unmarried and unemployed
Children 21 or older with a disability — a congenital or acquired condition that makes them totally dependent on you
Foster children — under the Foster Care Act (RA 10165)
Your parents aged 60 and above — if they are not members themselves and their monthly income is below the PhilHealth threshold
Parents with a permanent disability — regardless of age

Two notes. First, a child who turns 21, gets married, or starts working stops being a qualified dependent and registers as a member in their own right. Second, a spouse who is already a member cannot double as your dependent; each of you carries your own coverage.

Step 1: Declare Your Dependents on Your Member Data Record

Before any dependent can use YAKAP, they must be formally declared by you — the principal member — and listed on your Member Data Record (MDR), per PhilHealth's qualified dependents page. The MDR is the master document PhilHealth uses to verify who is attached to your membership. If a newborn, spouse, or senior parent is not on it yet, update it first at any PhilHealth office (LHIO) or through the Member Portal, bringing proof of relationship (birth or marriage certificate).

This matters because dependent enlistment in YAKAP is anchored to the principal member's record. Clinics enlist a dependent against your existing registration, so the transaction typically needs the principal member's information, including your PhilHealth Identification Number (PIN), alongside the dependent's own details. No principal member record, no dependent enlistment. So bring your own PIN and details to every dependent transaction, not just theirs.

Step 2: Enroll Each Dependent in a YAKAP Clinic

Each dependent goes through the same four-step path you did — Registration, Selection, First Patient Encounter (FPE), then Empanelment — as set out in PhilHealth Circular No. 2025-0017. The family version:

Declare the dependent on your MDR if not yet listed (any PhilHealth office or the Member Portal).
Select a YAKAP clinic for them — via the eGov PH Super App, the PhilHealth Member Portal, any PhilHealth office, or the clinic itself. Families commonly pick one clinic for the whole household, which keeps records and follow-ups in one place; a clinic cannot reject a beneficiary who selected it unless it has reached its declared beneficiary limit.
Complete their FPE. The clinic takes or updates the dependent's basic health data to identify health risks. The circular is explicit that the FPE is not a medical consultation — it is the intake step that unlocks every benefit, and it is one FPE per person, not per family.
Sign their YAKAP Empanelment Slip (YES). Also called the Mutual Care Agreement, the YES has been required for empanelment since January 1, 2026 and is re-signed annually, per PhilHealth Advisory No. 2025-0071. Once signed, the dependent is empaneled to that clinic for at least a year, with the clinic serving as their first-contact provider and care coordinator.

Two family-specific rules to remember:

Parents transact for minors. All official YAKAP transactions for a minor — registration, clinic selection, and signing the YES/MCA — must be done by a parent or legal guardian. Dependents aged 18 and above transact on their own, even if they remain your dependents.
Expect a PhilHealth Check Utility (PCU) check. Clinics verify identity through a facial-recognition liveness check before the FPE and consultations. Dependents not yet registered in PhilSys can present a valid government-issued ID or alternative documents for manual validation.

If you have not gone through this yourself, start with our step-by-step YAKAP registration guide, and see how to choose your YAKAP clinic before locking the family in — empanelment lasts at least a year, and switching later follows the timing rules in our clinic-transfer guide.

What Your Dependents Actually Get: Everything You Get

A dependent's benefits are identical to a member's — there is no "lite" version. Per PhilHealth's official YAKAP program page and the program's 2026 expansion, every empaneled beneficiary gets, in their own name:

Free primary care checkups at their YAKAP clinic
13 free laboratory tests — including CBC with platelet count, lipid profile, fasting blood sugar, creatinine, chest X-ray, ECG, urinalysis, Pap smear, and fecalysis, per GMA News' YAKAP services rundown
Up to P20,000 worth of medicines per beneficiary per year from the 75-medicine GAMOT list at accredited pharmacies — the pharmacist can tell you each person's remaining balance, per the official YAKAP steps flyer
Free screening for the four top cancers — breast (mammography and ultrasound), liver (alpha-fetoprotein), lung (low-dose CT scan), and colorectal (colonoscopy)

The P20,000 medicine cap is per beneficiary, not per family — a household with five empaneled beneficiaries has five separate P20,000 allowances.

Quick Answers for Families

Does my spouse need their own PhilHealth number? A legitimate spouse who is not a member is covered as your dependent, declared on your MDR.
Can my newborn be enrolled? Yes — infants are among the covered categories on PhilHealth's YAKAP page. Declare the baby on your MDR first.
Can my kids go to a different clinic than mine? Yes, each beneficiary selects their own clinic — though one clinic for the whole family makes follow-ups far simpler.
Can my senior parents enroll under me? Yes, if they are 60+ non-members with income below the threshold, or permanently disabled at any age. Parents who are members themselves enroll under their own membership instead.
Do dependents pay anything at the clinic? Covered YAKAP services — labs and screenings included — are free of charge.

Behind the counter, YAKAP clinics handle MM and DD enlistments, PCU checks, and FPE records through EMR systems like RecordKo, built for YAKAP end-to-end — so a well-run clinic can enlist your whole family in a single visit. Curious how the program works end to end? Start with what YAKAP is and how it evolved from Konsulta.