NHIS to roll capitation in Eastern Region

The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has organized a sensitization workshop for its staff in the Eastern Region as part of effort to prepare and upgrade their knowledge on the capitation programme.

The Region is among six other regions to be rolled on to the programme

Health Insurance Capitation is pre-financing of health services by health facilities to particular NHIS registered clients who would be required to access healthcare at a particular provider.

Mr Anthony Gingong, Director, Provider and Payment at the NHIA, said the capitation programme would help improve quality of healthcare delivery by providers, ensure consistency in transfer of funds to providers, and provide data for decision making.

He noted that capitation would help address the challenges of Community Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Compound since it would have funds to run such facilities and help improve accessible healthcare in the rural communities.

Mr Gingong said capitation will also reduce the leakages that were associated with the Ghana-Diagnostic Related Groupings (G-DRG) system, which was introduced in 2008 and contributes to the delay of payment to service providers.

Mr Abass Sulemana, Senior Operations Manager, NHIA explained that with capitation, a patient was entitled to choose a preferred primary health care provider (PPP) for continuous health care and constant monitoring of the system.

He said capitation would enable the system to monitor and evaluate the cost and budget statistics for the overall improvement of benefits to client.

Alhaji Seidu Sampson Abudu, Eastern Regional Director of the NHIA, was grateful for the exercise and assured the authorities that, the Region would give out their best to ensure that the programme succeed.