The management of the Princess Marie Louise Children’s Hospital in Accra, has revealed the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) owes it over GHc 500,000.
The arrears, according to the hospital’s management, have had a toll on day to day running of the hospital over the past 12 months.
In a interview, the Medical Director of the Hospital, Dr. Eric Sefa, revealed that the last NHIA payment was in March 2016. He the situation is very challenging although they are managing to survive.
“The health insurance coverage is about 60 percent so we have 40 percent of people who pay cash and that is what is taking us through. We have suppliers that we owe. The people supply us with medicines and other items and if we are not able to pay them early, they also refuse to supply us with the items, so sometimes you are forced to buy the things with cash.”
Dr. Sefa added that, a settlement from the NHIA would be critical because “we need it to run our daily activities for the children in the wards. We need to buy food items for them every day so it all goes a long way to affect us.”
Early in February, the NHIA assured that it was collaborating with the Ministry of Health to release monies to pay suppliers overdue NHIS claims.
Most complaints have come from government hospitals which have said the delay in the payment of their claims is affecting healthcare delivery.
Speaking to Citi News, the Director of Communications for the NHIA, Selorm Adonoo, explained that the delay can be attributed to the processes involved in releasing monies.
Meanwhile, the authority recently inaugurated a claims payment software to facilitate the smooth and early payment of claims to service providers.
This came as some service providers have threatened to cut services to the scheme over delays in the payment of their claims.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
