Partners and facilities that subscribe to the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) are owed arrears of about 6 months. This is according to the Regional Director of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) Kassim Abdulai.
While admitting that the Scheme is challenged in certain areas, Mr Abdulai argued that other areas are relatively better and are able to properly dispense drugs that are covered by the Scheme.
“It is true that in some facilities, that [clients are served with only paracetamol] is happening, and when we confront them, the explanation is that they are indebted and are unable to buy medicines from the suppliers. Because we have not paid them up to date, they do not have good cashflow for them to be able to pay their suppliers and pick more drugs. In some facilities, these things do not exist. Everything is going on well. Of course, efforts are on course [to make payments]. We have just received our budget for the year.”
“Monies will be released to cover all of these things. We have paid till October 2021. Yes, there is some amount of arrears left that we have to cover. We usually have a technical period of 3 months to pay claims,” he said.
Mr Abdulai explained that after the verification of the claims has been done, all the arrears would be settled.
Meanwhile, speaking on the same platform, Mr Abdulai rubbished the claims made by the coalition of NGOs in Health that active members in the scheme have been dropping consistently.
He said a total of 73 per cent of the region’s population are active members which he says is a significant increase. These statistics, he said, are from the 2021 Population and Housing Census which pegged the region’s population at a little over 1.2 million people.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
