National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has strongly condemned co-payment system by some service providers describing the act as illegal and a violation of a memorandum of understanding it has signed with service providers.
The co-payment system was adopted by some service providers under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) following government’s inability to pay for the services they had provided.
Under the co-payment system mainly applicable in government hospitals, clients are made to pay part of the cost of their treatments. Though such monies are paid in cash to the hospitals, they still submit full cost of the services they provide to the NHIS and are paid fully.
But NHIA has vehemently opposed the policy because it is deemed double payments made to the providers.
Speaking on Reporters’ Visit on Tuesday, a bi-weekly news and currently affairs programme on A1 Radio, Zakaria Yakubu, the administrator of the Upper East Regional hospital justified their decision to charge clients and still submit claims to the NHIS for payment.
According to him, undue delays on the part of government to pay for their services pushed them into adopting the co-payment policy. He further explained that about 98% of their clients are on NHIS, coupled with high cost of medical apparatus and medicines thus it is extremely difficult for them to provider quality healthcare without charging the clients.
Checks by A1 Radio Ghana have shown that only in government hospitals that the co-payment system exists. An administrator of a private medical centre in Bolgatanga who wants to remain nameless blames the NHIA for allowing the policy to continue for over three years now.
However, Roland Ayine Abane, Bolgatanga Municipal NHIS Manager says the hospital is engaged in illegality and must put a stop to it.
“We signed something with the providers, known as a memorandum of understanding or an agreement. And part of the terms of the agreement says that you are not supposed to do co-payment. So if the providers are still doing co-payment or calling it a top-up or some kind of name, I think that decision is a unilateral decision by the providers. If you have gone through all these things and you are still doing top-up or co-payment, that is a unilateral decision and that is an illegality because from the explanation that he [Mr. Yakubu] is giving, at the end of the day, you are going to be paid double. You collect part of the money and later on you are reimbursed fully”. Mr. Ayine lamented.
Meanwhile, Kisimu Abdulai, Regional Operations Manager of the NHIA also joined in the condemnation of the policy and observed it was because the authority through the government has not been able to pay the service providers.
He, therefore, assured that since government is now managing commitment into settling the arrears of service providers, they will no longer allow them to continue with the policy.
source:a1radioonline.com
