{"id":179382,"date":"2016-01-06T07:00:45","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T07:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=179382"},"modified":"2016-01-06T07:00:45","modified_gmt":"2016-01-06T07:00:45","slug":"nhia-deserves-autonomous-account-tamale-forum-participants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=179382","title":{"rendered":"NHIA deserves autonomous account – Tamale forum participants"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are calls for separation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) financial credit from the consolidated fund.<\/p>\n

This topped suggestions by some participants at a day\u2019s public forum in Tamale on a possible review of the NHIS.<\/p>\n

They argued that government\u2019s control of the NHIS finances have always contributed to delays in \u00a0paying service providers who often threaten to withdraw their services.<\/p>\n

\"nhis<\/a><\/p>\n

They also advocated the need for quality assurance as some of the subscribers have always complained about quality variation by the service providers.<\/p>\n

They thereby asked the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to intensify their surveillance to ensure value for money.<\/p>\n

\"nhis<\/a><\/p>\n

Some service providers confirmed that patients were often required to pay additional money (co-payment) for services and medicines not covered by the NHIS.<\/p>\n

A seven-member technical review committee chaired by Dr. Chris Atim interacted with the stakeholders and sought their input to make the NHIS more efficient and sustainable.<\/p>\n

Dr. Chris Atim told Citi News<\/strong> on the sidelines that the committee embarked on a nationwide listening tour to gather public opinion on how to repackage the NHIS to achieve its goal.<\/p>\n

\"nhis<\/a><\/p>\n

According to him, the committee among other objectives is to ensure the scheme\u2019s financial sustainability and increase public confidence in the service providers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccountability and efficiency in the operations of the scheme as well as provision of a framework for periodic review and alignment of the scheme to broad health sector goals formed part of the committee\u2019s objectives,\u201d Dr. Atim stated.<\/p>\n

He said the committee at the end of the public forum would analyze all the recommendations in tandem with previous analyses and draw an action plan for implementation.<\/p>\n

The action plan will incorporate developing a change management and communication strategies to support the implementation of the proposed recommendations, he narrated.<\/p>\n

It was revealed that the NHIS recorded 10.5 million active subscriber base as at December 2014.<\/p>\n

Over 29 million attendances at health care facilities were made on account of the NHIS in 2014.<\/p>\n

Currently, 69% of NHIS registered subscribers are exempted from paying premiums.<\/p>\n

Revenues emanating from contributions collection over the years form a relatively small proportion of NHIS inflows accounting for 3.4% of total revenue for 2014.<\/p>\n

The National Insurance Levy contributed 73.8% of total revenue while SSNIT contributions accounted for 20.4%.<\/p>\n

The forum attracted Medical Doctors, service providers, scheme managers, pharmacists, nurses, health facility administrators, the clergy, the media and some subscribers from the entire Northern Region.<\/p>\n

As part of measures to sustain the NHIS, President John Dramani Mahama set up the seven-member Technical Review Committee to review the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are calls for separation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) financial credit from the consolidated fund. This topped suggestions by some participants at a day\u2019s public forum in Tamale on a possible review of the NHIS. They argued that government\u2019s control of the NHIS finances have always contributed to delays in \u00a0paying service […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=179382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=179382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=179382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=179382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}