As part of the 2010 Independence Day celebration, the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) and its schemes in all the regions on Saturday embarked on a cleanup exercise in selected health facilities in the country
In Greater Accra Region, the Authority merged with its schemes in the region to clean up the Tema General Hospital in Tema.
The cleanup exercise was conducted in conjunction with Zoomlion, a waste management organisation.
The exercise was led by the council members and the Chief Executive of the Authority, Mr. Sylvester Mensah.
The NHIA donated a few items to the Children’s ward of the Hospital.
Addresssing the press Mr. Mensah said the one-time health insurance premium would be introduced by December this year.
According to the Daily Graphic newspaper, this follows successful actuarial studies which support the feasibility of the one-time premium concept.
A programme to outline the commencement of the new scheme will soon be made public.
He indicated that although the service was confronted by numerous challenges such as corruption and fraudulent claims, as well as falsification of claims by various service providers, which were hindering a smooth implementation of targeted projects, the authority was determined to overcome them, since it had developed measures to solve them.
According to Mr. Mensah, countries the world over were still struggling to design models for health insurance schemes. Ghana's system had, therefore, been adopted as a guiding model by various countries seeking integrated health insurance schemes for their citizens.
He said the NHIA was considering the development of alternative payment models to reduce incidents of fraud and abuse and expressed optimism that when implemented, these approaches would address the challenges.
The Deputy Director in charge of Corporate Affairs, Mr. Eric Ametor Quarmyne, said the 2009 audit report on the scheme's utilisation showed vast ascendancy, a situation he described as reducing incidents of self-medication.
He said the authority's outflow exceeded its inflows, thereby stretching the scheme but assured subscribers that the authority would continue to develop positive approaches that would ensure that the health needs of the citizenry were protected.
Mr. Quarmyne indicated that the NHIA, as a corporate institution, sought to have a better working relationship with people, as a result, the authority had decided to change the face of its social responsibility programme by embarking on a nation-wide clean-up campaign aimed at reaching out to the people.
He said the campaign, which would be considered as a community outreach programme in various health centres, was aimed at reducing the occurrence of communicable diseases.
He charged service providers not to take advantage of the prompt payment of claims to indulge in overbilling.
Click here to view pictures
