NHIA to pay Distress Service Providers early this March

Koforidua, Feb. 28, GNA - Mr Windham Emil Afram, Eastern Regional Manager of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), has assured Distress Service Providers that payment would be made to them early March=

this year.

He has, therefore, appealed to them in the region to desist from an= y action that could undermine the smooth operations of the scheme. Mr Afram was speaking to the Ghana News Agency after staff of the N= HIA in the region and officials of the National Health Insurance Schemes Secretariats in the Yilo Krobo, Suhum-Kraboa-Coaltar, Akuapem North and t= he New Juaben Municipality, had undertaken a four-hour clean-up exercise at the New Juaben Municipal Poly-Clinic on Saturday. The clean-up exercise was supported by the staff of the Koforidua Office of the Zoomlion Company and the staff of the New Juaben Municipal Health Administration.

After the clean-up exercise, the staff of the NHIA and the participants in the clean-up exercise donated food items and detergents estimated at GH¢500 to the children's ward of the Koforidua Regional Hospital. Mr Afram warned scheme managers in the region to desist from issuin= g dud checks when put under pressure at the time they knew that their schem= es did not have money in their accounts and explained that such behaviours w= as criminal and one could go to jail for that. Mr Afram explained that, it was not the intention of the NHIA to unduly delay the payment of the Distress Service Providers but in an effo= rt to ensure that Ghanaians received value for money, the scheme took necess= ary measures to vet the claims submitted to it.

He said such vetting had enabled the scheme to save a lot of money that might had gone to service providers for no service done and cited a case where after vetting the claims submitted by service providers from M= ay to July last year to the New Juaben Municipal Secretariat of the NHIS, GH¢120,000 was saved. Mr Afram explained that sometimes some of the service providers als= o delayed in the submission of their claims. He added that the current management of the scheme put in place after the Mill's administration, me= t a backlog of unpaid claims and said all that had compounded the situation. He, however, assured that actions had been initiated to pay all the=

genuine claims to encourage the service providers to give off their best. 28 Feb. 10