Don’t inflate NHIS claims, service providers told

Mr Isaac Afari, the Kenyasi District Manager of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), has appealed to service providers to refrain from inflating claims in order to sustain the scheme.

He said the NHIS had detected that many of the service providers inflated their monthly claims and that about 10 percent of claims made by some service providers were always inflated.

Mr Afari said this at a regional sensitization and advocacy seminar to improve on the NHIS in Sunyani.

It was organized by Mission of Hope Society in collaboration with Universal Access to Health Care Campaign Coalition, a non-governmental organisation and attended by about 120 community members from Kotri, Abesim, Berekum, Kenyasi, Bechem, Techiman, Odumase, Adentia and Kotokrom.

Mr Afari said the sustainability of the NHIS largely depended on service providers and clients and appealed to the former to provide prompt and more efficient services.

He said the scheme was designed to benefit all Ghanaians, and there was the need to ensure that all technical problems and lapses that would collapse it were removed.

Mr Gabriel Gbiel Benarkuu, Chief Executive Officer of MIHOSO, said since the introduction of the NHIS, its challenges had always been blamed on the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) because of its mandate and oversight responsibility in ensuring the success of the scheme.

He said the success and sustainability of the scheme hinged not only on the NHIA, but also on the important role of health service providers in fulfilling their part of the contract signed with the Authority.

Mr Benarkuu said poor services delivery by healthcare providers under the NHIS was an act that defeated the purpose of the scheme and stressed the need for the NHIA to work more closely with civil society and support them where possible to monitor healthcare providers.

Mr Benarkuu called on the Authority to strengthen its clinical audit units and roll out biometric registration and capitation to reduce fraud in the system.