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The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) is on course
paying service providers who submit their claims vouchers on time.
This is to avert the return of quality health care services delivery
to Cash and Carry as Ghana is poised to attain 100 percent of Universal Health
Coverage (UHC) by 2030.
For the records, the NHIA has so far paid over Ghs91 million to
its accredited service providers covering this year (2020) alone.
In the order of payments, a total of 4,292 service providers
comprising 2,993 public health facilities, 1,038 private health facilities,
228, Mission health facilities and 33 Quasi-Government health facilities have
been paid.
The public health facilities received Ghs49, 845,207.91
representing 69.7% of the payments whiles the private service providers have
been paid Ghs26,033,139.75 pegged at 28.3%.
Mission health facilities (CHAG) have received
Ghs15,173,008.28 representing 16.5% and Quasi-Government service providers have
been paid Ghs846,565.84 pegged at 0.9% of the total payments made so far.
Similarly, Ghs857 million was paid as Claims to service
providers in the year 2019. Service providers now receive their reimbursements
in an average of six months in arrears instead of over 12 months as it used to
be.
The four NHIA Claims Processing Centers around the country have
put in place more efficient measures to speed up the vetting and payment
process. All these are done to ensure that NHIS members receive quality
healthcare.
Genesis
The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was set up to
provide financial risk protection against the cost of basic health care for all
residents in Ghana in 2003 with ACT 650 that got revised in 2012 to ACT 852.
Since its inception, the NHIS has over the years grown to become
a major instrument for financing health care delivery in Ghana and in fact is
the financial mainstay of over 4, 600 credentialed healthcare service providers
in the country accounting for more than 85% of funds that flow into healthcare
facilities to treat NHIS members.
The scheme is credited with improvements in the
healthcare-seeking behaviour of many people in Ghana who now tend to seek
medical attention earlier than before, thereby avoiding unnecessary
deterioration in their health conditions.
The NHIS continues to provide financial access to healthcare for
many people who otherwise could not afford the cost of their healthcare.
More people are visiting various NHIS credentialed health institutions
across the country on account of the Scheme. In fact, the NHIS in November
2019, recorded the highest active membership since its inception and is still
growing.
Through, claimspayment@nhia.gov.gh, Service Providers who have any enquiries regarding their
claim's vouchers submitted have the opportunity to reach out to the
Authority.
Source: Abdul Karim Naatogmah
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