NHIA awaits gov’t directives to start one time premium
The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) is ready to implement the one-time premium policy, the Communications Manager at the authority, Dr Nii Annan Adjetey, has said.
According to Dr Adjetey, what the NHIA was waiting for were directives from the government.
He said the government had to determine the date it should start the policy and how much people would have to pay.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic in an interview in Accra Tuesday, he said the NHIA did not want to contract any figures which would contradict the amount of premium that would be determined by the government.
He said far from being moribund, the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was undergoing reforms that were driving efficiency and productivity in its operations.
Among some of the reforms, he said, was the introduction of a claims processing centre which had significantly improved claims processing and reduced delays in claims payment to providers.
Dr Adjetey said the introduction of clinical audit to eliminate abuse and improve quality of care, as well as the mass registration exercises that were expanding health insurance coverage of the poor and vulnerable, was part of the reforms.
“The NHIS remains the financial mainstay of the numerous accredited healthcare service providers in the country. It is a source of funding for the procurement of a significant amount of medicines, medical consumables, services, capital projects, logistics and vital equipment for service providers. It accounts for more than 80 per cent of internally generated funds in public health facilities,” he indicated.
He added that study tours by an increasing number of visiting foreign delegations affirmed the rising profile of Ghana’s NHIS as an emerging model for countries in the developing world and beyond.
He said in November 2010, Ghana’s NHIS proudly won the UN award for excellence in such categories as leadership, home-grown initiatives, innovation, scalability of strategies and efficiency and as a hub of shared learning and shared experience in the developing world and beyond.
He asserted that those significant strides were signs of vitality and good health of the NHIS and, therefore, underscored the need not to politicise the NHIS and undermine public confidence in a national institution that all Ghanaians should cherish and support.
Source: Daily Graphic