Officials of the Claims Processing Centres (CPC) of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) are calling on government to expedite work to facilitate the electronic payment of claims to public hospitals across the country.
According to them, the process has delayed because the public hospitals are not adequately resourced to commence the electronic payment of claims.
[contextly_sidebar id=”dtPeSqlFn1YzAZ0tdEaYU1UtydfOxlf1″]The introduction of the electronic payment platform also follows demands by the Health Insurance Service Providers Association of Ghana (HISPAG) for the NHIA to review its Claims Processing Centres (CPC) which they say are faced with many lapses.
Speaking to Citi news, Director of the NHIA claims center in Dzorwulu, Mrs. Lydia Dsane Selby, noted of her outfit’s readiness but says it is awaiting work to start in public hospitals. Currently, only 12 percent of the payment of claims is conducted electronically.
“Most countries doing health insurance are doing electronic claims. 12 percent of our claims are electronic and hopefully we will keep building on that until we get to about 90- 95% and then we can handle the five percent manual claims,” she said.
Mrs. Lydia Dsane Selby further explained that the introduction of the electronic payment platform will help in reducing the inconsistencies associated with the manual system. Adding that the process is less expensive and faster compared to the manual one.
“For the e-claims of course there is no storage, no archiving, we are not paying any warehouse fees, on top of that when there is a dispute, they can actually go and look at the actual claims…but this is a lot easier, she stated.
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By: Pius Amihere Eduku/citifmonline.com/Ghana