The National Health Insurance Authority has confirmed to Citi News that it is currently disbursing some sixty million Ghana cedis to service providers owed since June 2016.
The Pharmacy Council Ghana; and the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG) have variously threatened to withdraw services to the scheme.
They are collectively owed over 1.2billion cedis.
Speaking to Citi News, the Corporate Affairs Director of the NHIA, Dr Adjetey Annan said the Authority had received GHC 60 million from government for the disbursement.
“We have received some releases from Central Government. The Health Minister sometime back indicated that government was going to release funds for NHIS to clear its debts. The monies come in tranches. As we speak , we’ve received a release of 60 million which is being disbursed to reimburse providers…We are expecting 70 million to also hit our account sooner or later and when that happens that also will go into reimbursement of providers whom we owe for quite a number of months…Government is doing its best to address this issue of backlog of arrears.”
He has however refuted claims that the Authority has increased health insurance premium from fifteen Ghana cedis to fifty Ghana cedis.
NHIS is broke, we can’t pay our debts
The new Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Samuel Annor had earlier disclosed that the scheme was broke and unable to pay service providers.
“The NHIA is at a stage where one will say it almost bankrupt; in that we have no reserves and we owe people so much. And this has come about because we have increased our membership so much but we have not increased the funding appropriately,” he added.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
