The National Health Insurance Authority has said it spends over GH¢90 million every month to pay claims of health service providers.
[contextly_sidebar id=”ZjvNKtA14V5VGm4Gv6kOUJhwgyBKvV1O”]According to the NHIA, this is increasingly overwhelming the authority.
This was made known when the CEO of the Authority, Sylvester Mensah took his turn to speak at the launch of the Centre for Universal Health Coverage (UPSA) in Accra, on Tuesday.
“The national health insurance scheme spends over GH¢3 million everyday or better still over GH¢90 million a month on healthcare bills for its members across the country. The overwhelming majority of whom are in the lower income and poverty brackets. The time has come for convincing intellectual argument on the role of health on the economic development equation,” Mr Mensah stated.
“Healthcare facilities across the country admits more than 85% of their internally generated funds come from payments from the National Health Insurance Authority…The national health insurance scheme is the cash cow to sustaining the health care industry and the pharmaceutical supply chain in Ghana. They also confirm that up 90% of their patients are health insurance subscribers. This also implies that the NHIS bares an overwhelming proportion of the cost burden of patient care in the country,” he noted.
The centre, jointly set up by the NHIA and UPSA, will be an intellectual leadership and technical training institute to facilitate health financing, health policy reforms and the development of health insurance systems in Ghana.
The centre is expected to close the gap on indigenous intellectual leadership for health financing, provide research and objective basis for universal health coverage UHC policies and develop human capital for implementing UHC policies. The centre will also provide consultancy services to both local and international clients.
He also believes the centre will help address the many problems that has bedevilled the institution.
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By: Kojo Agyeman/citifmonline.com/Ghana