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Tamale, Ghana – Contrary to media reports and public misconception that most private hospitals in Ghana are engaged in all kinds of illegality to rake in revenue under the cover of the NHIS, the Northern Regional Director of the NHIA, Alhaji Hudu Iddrisu, has rather placed the blame squarely on government hospitals.
According to Alhaji Iddrisu, most of the hospitals involved in the illegal acts were state-owned hospitals, ran by the government.
“Surprisingly, most of the facilities that are involved in these activities happen to be those owned by the state; public health facilities put up and paid for by the government. All these negative practices create the impression that the NHIS has not created the financial access to the healthcare as it is supposed to do…..
“We are aware of all the happenings in some of the facilities that are credentialed by the Authority to provide services to our members. You can call it top-up, co-payments, or any other name”, Alhaji Iddrisu made these statements when he opened the 2017 end of year performance review meeting in Tamale on Tuesday.
He observed that, the ongoing illegality could cause public discontent for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and affect its enrolment or renewal rates.
“….. medicines found on the NHIA’s medicines list are being sold to gullible NHIS members whilst some prescribers deliberately prescribe outside the NHIA’s medicines list to cause card bearers to still buy these medications even though alternatives are on the list that should have been given to them free of charge. Yet these providers who are indulged in this, at the end of every month submit claims to the Authority for payments including medicines and the services for which they have already collected monies from our members”, he pointed out.
Alhaji Iddrisu cautioned service providers who were engaged in such acts to put a stop to it “before we ask Clinical Audit to descend on those facilities”.
The 2017 performance review meeting is one of the important events on the operational calendar of the National Health Insurance Authority, as it offers managers the opportunity to review their past performance and chart a new way as well as adopt strategies for the year 2018.
At the end of December 2017, the Authority’s performance in the Northern Region was Ghc879,609.00 representing 89.7 percent of its annual target. This is slightly below its initial target of Ghc980, 581.00.
The Northern Regional Director commended management and staff in all the district offices for their “wonderful performance, commitment, dedication and sacrifice” despite the numerous challenges they were confronted with.
He urged them to employ the same dedication, hard work, and commitment they exhibited last year, and above all put the interest of stakeholders first in everything they did.
By Savannahnews
