NHIA urged to be more committed to achieve Universal Health Coverage by 2030
Madam Ophelia Mensah Hayford, the Member of Parliament for Mfantseman, has urged the staff of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to continue to serve to the best of their abilities to achieve a Universal Health Coverage by 2030.
“Should the scheme fail, it means we have failed Ghana and posterity will be our best judge” she said.
Madam Hayford said this in a speech read on her behalf during the 2021 Performance Review Meeting, organised by the Central Regional Directorate of the NHIA at Winneba.
It was on theme: “Improving Membership Performance to Achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC)” and attended by managers and staff of the various offices in the Central Region.
Madam Mensah said while the Government was playing its part to achieve the UHC for people to have access to healthcare without financial difficulty, all other stakeholders must continue to contribute towards the sustainability and growth of the scheme.
She said the NHIS was the golden child of the New Patriotic Party-led government, hence its continuous support to help grow the scheme for access to better health care.
She mentioned the successes chalked by the Authority to include improvement in claims reimbursement and construction of district officers across the country.
The MP said she had registered more than 5000 members onto the National Health Insurance Scheme and purchased four Air-conditioners for the district office and currently lobbying to get them a pick-up vehicle to help their outreach programmes.
Madam Mensah promised to procure some computers for the Mfantseman NHIS Office, saying the Scheme had come to stay and all must, in their own small way, support it for unborn generations to also benefit.
Mr Theophilus Owusu Ansah, the Claims Processing Centre Director for Central and Western regions, identified its numerous challenges to include delays in submission of claims, non-adherence to new medicines list/tariffs, co-payments by providers, unauthorised outreach services by providers, poor records keeping, invalid/inactive NHIS membership and incomplete claim format.
He urged the service providers to strictly adhere to the guidelines to ensure claim forms were properly filled, completed and forwarded on time.
“It is expected we collectively help contain cost by ensuring that only legitimate claims are reimbursed,” he added.
Source: GNA