The Government has assured the service providers of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) that their claims would be paid promptly to enable them contribute to the efficient delivery of health services.
As a result of the delay in payment of service providers, majority of them have threatened to go back to the cash and carry era where patients are made to pay before accessing health care.
Mr Rockson Ayine Bukari, the Upper East Regional Minister, gave the assurance when the Managers of the Scheme and some staff paid a courtesy call on the Minister to brief him on the current state of the operations of the Scheme in the Region.
He said the Government attached much importance to the health of all Ghanaians and would do everything possible to help improve the operations of the Scheme.
The Regional Minster also advocated for the decentralization of the Claim Processing Units so as to speed up the process of the payment of service providers.
He urged the Regional Managers to be mindful during the enrolment of beneficiaries so as not to bloat the registration with foreigners.
He told the Managers of the Scheme that unlike other regions, the Upper East Region had a peculiar problem and stressed the need for the health needs of the people to be given special attention.
Enumerating some of the challenges encountered by the Scheme in the Region, the Regional Director of the Scheme, Mr Sebastian Alagpulinsa, said the challenge of ICT was making it difficult to process the registration of beneficiaries and claims.
He told the Regional Minister that in spite of the challenges, the Scheme over the years had been performing creditably and mentioned for instance that the year 2016 it exceeded the national target registration of indigenes which was 158,571, to register 182,904, representing 11.5 per cent difference.
“Also as a performance indicator, the region was given a target of 332,859 school children to be registered under the Scheme and 281,061 was achieved representing 84 per cent”, he said.
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